This time last year I wrote an article entitled “2018: Year of the Dog likely to live up to its name for Chinese mineral consumers” (American Ceramic Society Bulletin, Vol. 97, No. 2, p.20). Well, it certainly did!

A range of factors arising in 2017 and spilling into 2018 significantly compounded the shortage of key refractory (and other) mineral exports from China vital to the world’s refractory manufacturing sector.