THE KAOLIN INDUSTRY has been suffering from increased competition from ground calcium carbonate (GCC) and precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) in paper, its main market, since the early 1990s and producers have generally been unable to charge significantly higher prices for their products. A further problem worldwide, but especially in the USA and UK, has been an increase in energy costs that led producers to introduce price surcharges since 2003. The last few years have seen a decrease in production levels from the USA and UK and being replaced mainly by kaolin products from the Amazon Basin. The UK, for so long the second leading producer in the world behind the USA, has now been overtaken by Brazil and China.
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