Market Trends of Asia-Pacific Bitumen Industry
Road Construction Application to Dominate the Market
- The majority of bitumen consumed is processed into asphalt for road construction. Asphalt is a mixture of rock aggregates and bitumen. Bitumen serves as a binding agent and thus, is responsible for the stability of asphalt.
- Depending on the type of bitumen or composition of the mixture used, asphalt roads can be made suitable for regions with different climatic conditions or various levels of operational demands. Asphalt is also used for airport runways, parking decks, and working areas in ports.
- Roadways are one of the key sectors that determine a country's economic growth. Roads, airport runways, and parking decks are essential services that drive economic activity by channelizing trade and mobility. Massive investments are required that help in the modernization and maintenance of these systems.
- In Asia-Pacific, infrastructure activities are expected to increase significantly, especially in the transportation sector, owing to increasing urbanization and shifting focus toward developing the secondary sector in these countries.
- Furthermore, increasing economic prosperity is driving infrastructure financing toward consumer sectors, including transportation and manufacturing, which provide and distribute raw materials for consumer goods.
- In March 2022, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway in India announced the plan of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to build over 1.47 lakh km of roads in the country. The NHAI is also building 22 green highways by the end of 2024. Some of the major projects include:
- The Bangalore-Chennai Expressway is expected to be completed in March 2024. The expressway is 260.85 km long, and the estimated cost of the project is INR 17,000 crore (~USD 2 billion).
- The Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway will be completed in December 2023. The expressway is 669 km long, and the estimated cost of the project is INR 39,500 crore (~USD 4.7 billion).
- The Raipur-Visakhapatnam Expressway is expected to be completed in March 2024. The expressway is 464 km long, and the estimated cost of the project is INR 20,000 crore (~USD 2.4 billion).
- As of July 2023, a total of 202 national highway (NH) projects worth INR 79,789 crore (~USD 9.6 billion) are at the implementation stage in the country. These projects are 6,270 km in length with an estimated construction period of 18-30 months.
- As of December 2022, all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across China have issued local expressway development plans during the 5th Five-Year Plan period. In the th Five-Year Plan for transportation development and construction, most provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong Province, Zhejiang Province, Jiangsu Province, and Fujian Province, have formulated specific development goals and plans for the total mileage of expressways, investment in fixed assets of expressways and the rate of expressway superior roads.
- Since the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", China's highway construction investment accounted for about 2.4% of GDP, of which the proportion of national highway construction investment in highway construction investment was about 36%.
- With such development projects, the demand for bitumen is expected to be the largest for road construction projects.
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China to Dominate the Regional Market
- The Chinese government is focusing on boosting investments across the construction sector in the country to boost overall economic growth. For instance, recent moves to increase financing for infrastructure construction include a USD 120 billion increase in the lending ratio of policy banks. The government is also considering allowing local governments to spend up to about USD 220 billion of the special bond quota through which local governments fund infrastructure construction.
- China's infrastructure construction is accelerating as the central government continues to build public confidence in the country's economic growth despite a new wave of COVID-19 outbreaks. Government agencies have also introduced measures to encourage infrastructure construction.
- In January 2023, a major infrastructure project with a total investment of about RMB 50 billion (~USD 7.4 billion) was officially launched in a centralized manner. Furthermore, in North China, construction is back on track. Construction work began on 43 projects worth RMB 41.6 billion (~USD 6.1 billion) in Hebei Province, covering infrastructure, public services, and smart city facilities.
- All these construction activities will create a positive demand for waterproofing solutions and the use of adhesives, which will improve the demand for bitumen.
- Moreover, the government is also focusing on the improvement of transport within the country with a number of road construction projects in the pipeline.
- In 2023, the total number of transportation projects under construction and newly started by Zhejiang Communications Group will reach 27, with a total project investment of CNY 4.1 trillion (~USD 570 billion), and the project scale will hit a record high with 896 expressway projects.
- In Hunan province, the focus is on the network to supplement and strengthen the chain, and promote the construction of expressways, national and provincial trunk lines, rural roads and inland water transport as a whole. About 6 new expressways of 445 km have been started, and 4 have been completed and opened to traffic for nearly 200 km, with a total mileage of 7500 km.
- With many such developments underway in China, the country is expected to dominate the Asia-Pacific Bitumen Market.
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