I've also pointed out that a retrenchment in the steel markets tends not to have the effect that most people expect in terms of a predicted negative impact on niobium demand...
The fact is that the most recent significant downturn we saw in steel, in 2008-2009, was PREDICTED to have a major impact on niobium demand... but, in hindsight, production numbers show that the predicted impact just didn't occur. I've described why, here, a couple of times now... that steel producers who are significant niobium users have significant market advantages that mean niobium demand actually increases as steel production decreases.
Here's one of those "predictions" saying not only that niobium demand would suffer in the pullback, but claiming that it DID... which is now proven to have been not true: http://www.roskill.com/reports/steel-alloys/niobium
Not only did niobium demand not suffer a meaningful pullback of the sort that this link claims it did, it also didn't languish in 2009 in the way the link suggests it would. Demand is on a fairly steady ramp, still averaging around 10% per year. The current limit in niobium demand is that there is still a distinct minority among producers with production capacity that makes them capable of using it. That's why those producers sustained demand for their products, even while production from the non-users bore the brunt of the declines in 2008.
Two things result that matter now, or that are worth watching in the future.
First is that in the "current market issues"... in which the situation described before remains true. Niobium steel generates advantages that mean a broad reduction in demand for steel will still tend not to impact producers of niobium alloyed products in the way the larger market is impacted... rather than provide market advantages to niobium users at the others expense.
Second is that in the gradual transformation of the industry over time as it gravitates toward adding additional niobium alloy production capability, as the non-capable are weeded out of the market. As that transition occurs, over time, niobium demand will continue to grow... until we reach the point where the benefit is ubiquitous. At that point, niobium demand will be much larger than it is today, but, at that point niobium demand will again become linear with steel... and then it won't be true that a pull back in steel won't be matched by change in demand for niobium. That time is still a way off... given the fairly low proportion of steel using niobium now.
Nice find, DSU. I did not f.i. know, that active component improving steel characteristics is not Nb as element, but its carbide. But if I read correctly, this article was dealing with tool steel, and not construction steel, right?
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