Resumen de 2016 Year in Review

Industrial Minerals

• Around 1% of global TiO2 supply is consumed by the food and pharmaceutical industries in consumer goods such as sunscreen, toothpaste, powdered sugar and sweets. However, consumers are growing increasingly concerned about the content of food and cosmetics, and following public pressure in 2015, two major bakery chains, Panera Bread and Dunkin' Donuts, announced they were ditching TiO2 as an ingredient from their baked goods. This trend continued into 2016, when confectionery producer Mars Corp. committed to removing TiO2 from its sweets in November.

  In October, repair work finally started at China Sciences Hengda Graphite Co.'s graphite mine in Yichang, Hubei, where broken pipelines led to the formation of hazardous sink holes in the site's tailings pond in January 2015. The resulting suspension of mining activity at Hengda has affected the region's graphite trade, although the supply was not missed by the market.

  Difficult market conditions weighed down Turkish magnesia suppliers in 2016. Speaking at MagMin in May, Dr Haris Yiannoulakis, chemical engineer at Grecian