Bitumen Market: Introduction
Bitumen is a dark, highly viscous, and sticky substance derived from crude oil through fractional distillation. It is primarily used as a binder in road construction. Bitumen is also known as “asphalt” in North America. It is also used in other applications such as electronics, roofing, and adhesives due to its resistance to water, insulation properties, and high durability. Properties of bitumen can be altered by adding polymers to it, thus increasing its application scope. There are several types of bitumen available in the global market such as cutback bitumen, oxidized bitumen, Polymer Modified Bitumen (PMB), and bitumen emulsion. Additionally, bitumen is available as hard or soft grade depending on the viscosity. Furthermore, warm mix bitumen, hot mix bitumen, and cold mix bitumen are the different types of bitumen available in the market. They are named mix bitumen, hot mix bitumen, and cold mix bitumen depending upon the different temperatures required to melt bitumen for applications.
The report on bitumen market has been segmented into various chapters. Under each chapter, we have tackled the different aspects of the market and provided an analysis on various parameters. Preface provides a brief diagrammatic representation on the segmentation of the bitumen market. Additionally, the chapter provides a detailed description of the methodology used for research along with the scope and assumptions used in estimating as well as analyzing the future market growth.
Bitumen Market: Dynamics
Apart from increased road development activities across emerging economies, the bitumen market is gaining traction from growing scope and applications of polymer modified bitumen (PMB). PMB is gaining adoption for its advantageous properties of high skid resistance, high porosity, and low noise. The roadways industry highly appreciates these advantages. Therefore, demand for PMB has been rising.
On the other hand, environmental concerns pertaining to the extraction of bitumen and emergence of some of the viable alternatives are expected to curtail the progress of the bitumen market in the near future. Nevertheless, the analyst of the report has foreseen the development of bio-based bitumen to open vast new opportunities. The trend across all industries is to be ecofriendly and the bitumen market players need to devise ways to sustain their industry in an environment-friendly manner.
Bitumen Market: Prominent Regions
Geographically, Asia Pacific has been highlighted as the region with enormous potential, although North America provided for greater demand for bitumen as of 2020. This growth was primarily driven by high demand from the U.S. for repair and redevelopment of existing roads. However, the market in Asia Pacific is expected to witness lucrative growth, owing to increasing initiatives for infrastructure development in the region.
Bitumen Market: Key Players
Detailed profiles of certain leading companies are provided in the report, along with a detailed analysis of their market share. Leading companies in the market include Shell Bitumen, NuStar Energy, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil Company, Valero Energy Corporation, and Nynas AB. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, financial overview, SWOT analysis, business strategies, and recent developments.