ACCORDING TO a new report by MarketsandMarkets, “EPDM Rubber (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer) Market by Application & Geography Trends & Forecasts to 2017” , the global EPDM market will top US$6.5 billion by 2017.
EPDMs are synthetic rubber and are known for their high quality performance in a various industrial applications for its resistance properties to heat, ozone and weather, polar substances and electrical insulation. It is used in the manufacture of seals, washers, glass-run channels, radiators, garden and appliance hose, tubing, pond liners, belts, electrical insulation, vibrators, o-rings, solar panel heat collectors, electrical cable jackets, roofing membranes, etc. Ethylene and propylene are the major raw materials in the production of EPDM and any change in the demand and supply of these raw materials could have a major impact on the EPDM industry.
The research group says that the market is segmented and revenues are forecast on the basis of major regions such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World (ROW). The key countries are covered and forecast for each region.
The EPDM market is in a state of high production capacity utilisation and this kind of situation leads the market to price rise and offers wide scope to manufactures for new capacity addition. The global market for EPDM in terms of revenue was estimated to be worth around US$4.2 billion in 2011 and is expected to reach US$6.5 billion by 2017, growing at an estimated CAGR of 6.9% from 2012 to 2017. Asia-Pacific is the largest EPDM market, which is expected to rise due to robust growth in end-user industries such as automotive, wire & cables, and lubricant additive of China and India. Key market participants in the global EPDM market are LANXESS AG (Germany), ExxonMobil Chemical Corp. (US), Dow Elastomer (US), Mitsui Chemical (Japan), Kumho Petrochemical (South Korea), Lion Copolymer (US), Versalis (Italy), JSR Corporation (Japan), Jilin Chemical (China), SK Global Chemical (Japan), Nizhnekamskneftekhim Inc (Russia), Sumitomo (Japan), etc.