:: Fragmented Boom for Crushing and Screening

World demand for crushing and screening equipment has surged in the last two years. But this is no bubble, believes Metso Minerals’ Luís Santos, senior vice president of Metso Minerals’ crushing and screening business. Santos foresees a sustained period of high demand.

The general health of the world economy, record mineral prices and a boom in construction - not forgetting the rise of China, India and Russia - have all increased demand for crushing and screening equipment from recession to boom in the space of 36 months.

The crushing and screening equipment market has not experienced the rationalisation that has occurred in the wider construction industry. Apart from a few high profile acquisitions, most notably the merger of Nordberg and Svedala to form Metso Minerals in 2001, the market remains fragmented.

Metso is the current market leader with a 13% share of the market: the top five manufacturers combined barely equate to 30%. “We don’t just compete with global players, we also compete with literally thousands of small local producers," says Santos, a 25 year veteran of the business.

But although still fragmented, the nature of the market is changing. One of the main reasons for this is that customers’ buying habits are changing. While productivity has always been important, reliability and ‘cost to crush’ are now vying for supremacy.

Many of the smaller players in the market are using basic technology first seen in the 1950s. Although they can do the job and might be cheaper to buy initially, their total cost of ownership over the equipment’s life cycle can be high, as productivity is low and energy consumption high. "Our development focus has been on reducing the cost-to-crush ratio,” continues Santos. “Energy is not going to be cheap again for the foreseeable future: consequently modern crushing equipment is now using 8-10% less energy than it did in the 1990s.”

The crushing and screening equipment market has seen a seismic shift from stationary to mobile crushing in recent years – such that a full 90% of crushers in general construction are of the mobile variety. This new technology has acted as a disruptive force and diverted a conservative industry in a new direction.

Until the mid 1990s even the largest manufacturers were primarily equipment suppliers. Now they are working hard to be seen as solutions providers over the whole life of the equipment. In practical terms this means more than just providing spare parts.