Export suspended! What exactly is natural sand?

Recently, according to the official website of the Ministry of Commerce, in response to the question of whether there will be any adjustment in the policy on exporting natural sand to Taiwan, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce stated that according to relevant laws and regulations, it has been decided to suspend the export of natural sand to Taiwan. The relevant measures will be implemented from August 3, 2022. So what is natural sand? What impact will the suspension of the mainland's export of natural sand to Taiwan have on Taiwan?

How to obtain natural sand?

Natural sand and gravel are generally directly mined from natural sand and gravel resources and then sieved. People usually call sand and gravel mined from rivers, mountains, seas, etc. river sand, mountain sand and sea sand, or collectively referred to as natural sand, which is a natural mineral resource.

Hu Youyi, president of the China Mineral Resources Association, said in an interview with the media that after entering the 21st century, along with the rapid growth of my country's economy, there have been more and more large-scale infrastructure construction and improved housing construction, the demand for sand and gravel has become more vigorous, and the Chinese government's environmental awareness has become stronger. Since 2008, many places in my country have successively issued documents to restrict or explicitly prohibit the mining of natural sand and gravel, and no longer export natural sand and gravel to Japan. The sales volume of natural sand and gravel in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and other regions of my country has also been stipulated: from 2008 to 2018, it will decrease by 10% each year.

What is the specific use?

“Natural sand”:

In terms of usage, silica sand and quartz sand are used in the construction industry, glass industry or metal cleaning, etc. Clay sand, including kaolin sand, is mainly used for making casting molds and refractory products; feldspar sand is used in the ceramic industry. Natural sand that has been heat-treated to remove impurities is still included in this heading.

River sand is mostly used in construction, concrete, cementitious materials, road construction materials, artificial marble, cement physical properties test materials (i.e. cement standard sand), etc. River sand can also be used in casting, metallurgy, heat treatment, steel structure, frame structure, repair, bridge, mining and other fields for sand removal, rust removal, strengthening, forming, stress relief and surface cleaning and coating of various profiles.

Quartz sand is widely used in industries such as glass, casting, ceramics and refractory materials, smelting ferrosilicon, metallurgy, construction, chemical industry, plastics, rubber, abrasives and filter materials. It is also an ideal material for supporting use in modern artificial venues such as athletic fields, football fields, and golf courses.

Sea sand is sand and gravel in the sea. It is the main raw material for machinery and foundry sand. It can also be used for grinding materials, cleaning sand, removing rust, removing oxide scale to treat ceramics and refractory materials, etc.

At present, legal river sand mining sites in China must obtain a "River Sand Mining License" issued by the water conservancy department.

Why suspend exports?

According to previous public information from the Ministry of Commerce, on March 1, 2007, for the purpose of protecting the environment and resources, mainland China banned the export of natural sand to Taiwan. Since then, Taiwan's sandstone industry and relevant parties have reported to the mainland through various channels that due to the shortage of natural sand resources on the island, insufficient supply of natural sand and rising prices, the construction industry and even the overall economic development have been greatly affected, and they urgently hope that the mainland will resume the export of natural sand to Taiwan as soon as possible.

Considering the fact that more than 95% of Taiwan's natural sand imports come from the mainland, and in order to benefit Taiwan's economic development and people's livelihood needs, the Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, after careful research, announced on November 8, 2007 that it could consider resuming the export of natural sand to Taiwan. On November 13 of that year, six industry associations including the Taiwan Import Sand and Gravel Association jointly came to Beijing to communicate with the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Transportation and other departments on relevant issues. After that, the Ministry of Commerce started the preparation work for resuming the export of natural sand to Taiwan, and issued a series of relevant policies, including "Supplementary Standards and Related Matters for Applying for Natural Sand Export Licenses" and "List of Enterprises that Meet the Standards for Applying for Natural Sand Export Licenses".

How big an impact will it have on Taiwan?

On March 7, 2008, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Procedures for Applying for Natural Sand Export Licenses to Taiwan and Related Matters", announcing that the export of natural sand to Taiwan would be officially resumed from March 10. Sand and gravel companies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait can conduct natural sand trade in accordance with the provisions of the announcement.

Professor Zheng Youping of Taipei University said that the amount of sand and gravel imported by Taiwan from mainland China was more than 8 million tons in 2002, more than 15 million tons in 2003, and more than 31 million tons in 2006. If this trend continues, Taiwan's import demand for natural sand from mainland China will continue to increase. Zheng Youping introduced that according to statistics, Taiwan's normal annual demand for sand and gravel is 66 million cubic meters, which is about 90 million tons of total demand, and one-third of this comes from river sand mining, one-third comes from the mining of sand and underground stone on the island, and one-third is imported from the mainland.

Will it affect the chip industry?

Some people believe that the suspension of natural sand exports to Taiwan by the Ministry of Commerce will also have an impact on Taiwan's semiconductor, photovoltaic and other industries. This is because Taiwan has always focused on the manufacture of logic chips, and the raw material of chips is the silicon material in the sand.

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However, Lin Jiafu, an engineer at a photovoltaic glass company in Fujian, said in an interview that according to the General Administration of Customs' regulations on the export management of natural sand, this type of natural sand should still be used in the construction industry, and can also be used for smelting, ordinary glass production, etc. The silica sand used in photovoltaic glass production has very high requirements for the purity of silicon dioxide.

Chang Shuai, an associate researcher at the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Beijing Institute of Technology, said in an interview that if you want to turn sand into silicon materials, you need to convert the silicon dioxide in the sand into silicon materials with a purity of more than 98%, and then further purify this industrial silicon, and then make the silicon materials that meet the purity standards into single crystal silicon. "In short, only high-purity single crystal silicon can be used as production materials." Chang Shuai also said that the silicon materials used in the semiconductor industry are various silicon-containing ores, such as vein quartz, quartz gravel, etc. The reserves of these ores on the earth are very large, and the consumption of silicon materials in the high-precision industry such as semiconductors is far less than that in the construction industry. Therefore, the problem of "not enough sand" will not become a bottleneck for the development of the semiconductor industry.

Source: Beijing Youth Daily

Reporter: Song Xia

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