Adverse weather, regulatory measures in China and a global recession drastically impacting end markets: last year was tough for the graphite industry and during the two first quarters of 2009, many producers worldwide had to close their mines or reduce production.
Financial crisis impact
The financial crisis which dramatically struck the steel sector and therefore the refractories industry (its main application, see pie chart) resulted in weakened demand for graphite.
Timcal Ltd, one of the world’s leading producers of graphite products and the Switzerland based subsidiary of Imerys, idled production in Canada at its natural graphite mine in Lac-des-Iles, Quebec, during Q1/Q2 2009. But when the market started to show cautious signs of recovery, “production started again at the beginning of June 2009, reaching full production during summer 2009,” Fabrizio Corti, Timcal’s vice president sales...