Japanese Refractories Fall 6.9%

Data for 2004 released by the Japanese Refractories Association reveals that the total production of refractories for 2004 amounted to 1.130M/tonnes, down 6.9% from 2003. A total of 358,000/tonnes of bricks and 693,900/tonnes of monolithics were produced in Japan in 2004. While monolithics production declined by just 3.4%, a more drastic drop was felt by bricks, accounting for a fall of 13%. Perhaps the good news is for mineral suppliers, which would see that the Japanese refractories market consumed 957,000/tonnes of raw materials in 2004, up from 880,000/tonnes in 2003.