Market evolution: Crude asbestos (CN 2524) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the evolution of EU external trade in CN 2524 — crude asbestos (excluding products made from asbestos) — over the period 2015–2025. The product overview covers two sub-headings: 252410 (crocidolite asbestos) and 252490 (other asbestos, i.e. non-crocidolite). The EU banned the extraction and use of asbestos through a series of Directives culminating in a full prohibition effective from 1 January 2005. Consequently, residual trade in crude asbestos recorded since 2015 reflects decontamination activities, laboratory/research re-exports, disposal shipments, and occasional reclassification artefacts — rather than an active commercial market. Despite this context, the trade data reveals surprisingly dynamic patterns in value, price and partner structure, which this report analyses in detail.

1. Terminal contraction of trade volumes

The most fundamental feature of EU asbestos trade over 2015–2025 is the near-total collapse of physical volumes, on both the import and export sides.

Import volumes fell by 77 % over the period

EU imports of crude asbestos declined from 163.1 tonnes in 2015 to 37.6 tonnes in 2025 — a drop of 77.0 %. The trend was not monotonic; volumes were highly volatile year-on-year, with a peak of 1,251.4 t in 2019 and a trough of 29.8 t in 2020. After 2019, volumes never recovered to comparable levels, settling between 37 and 1,073 tonnes. The dominant sub-product is 252490 (non-crocidolite asbestos), which accounts for virtually all import tonnage; sub-heading 252410 (crocidolite) appears only in trace amounts (never exceeding 0.5 t in any single year).

Source: Product segment breakdown

Exports have virtually disappeared

EU exports of crude asbestos collapsed from 0.14 tonnes (€365) in 2015 to 0.001 tonnes (€1) in 2025, a decline of 99.3 % in volume and 99.7 % in value. The only notable export event in the entire period was a 27.5-tonne shipment of crocidolite (252410) in 2022, valued at €23,656, which almost certainly represents the disposal or re-export of legacy material rather than a commercial transaction. Excluding this single event, EU exports are negligible and trending to zero.

Major EU importers have stepped back

The contraction is equally visible at the Member State level. Germany, once the largest EU importer (€27,739 in 2015), recorded just €19 in 2025 — a decline of 99.9 %. Spain and Portugal similarly contracted by over 94 %. France remains the single largest residual importer at €5,814 in 2025, but this is still a 68.4 % decline from its 2015 level (€18,400). Ireland is the only Member State showing relative stability (€884 → €856, only −3.2 %), suggesting a small but persistent demand perhaps linked to ongoing abatement activity.

2. A striking price divergence: soaring unit values against collapsing volumes

Perhaps the most counter-intuitive finding in the data is that the total value of EU asbestos imports increased over 2015–2025, even as physical volumes plummeted. This is entirely explained by a dramatic rise in unit values.

Import values rose 138 % while quantities fell 77 %

The overall trade data shows:

The average EU import price for non-crocidolite asbestos (252490) rose from €20.0/t in 2015 to €164.7/t in 2025. However, this trajectory was far from linear: the price spiked to €101.3/t in 2017, collapsed to €7.9/t in 2021, and then surged to its 2025 peak. Such volatility reflects the extremely thin and irregular nature of the market — a single shipment can dominate the annual average.

A major price shock was detected for US-origin imports in 2021

The shock analysis identifies an extreme price anomaly in EU imports from the United States centred on 2021, with an abnormality score of 102.2 and a year-on-year shift of +7,684 %. This event accounted for 17.7 % of total import value that year. A smaller but still significant price shock is flagged for China in the same year (abnormality 9.9, shift +113.9 %). These isolated spikes are consistent with one-off shipments of specialist or research-grade material entering at prices far above the commodity norm.

Export prices were even more volatile

EU export unit values ranged from €82.4/t to €5,493.3/t over the period, with no discernible trend — a pattern entirely consistent with sporadic, non-commercial shipments where the declared value reflects logistics or disposal costs rather than market pricing. The volatility data confirms this, with coefficient of variation values above 0.69 for the main export partners.

3. Partner shifts, concentration patterns and structural autonomy

Despite the small absolute scale of trade, the geographical composition of EU asbestos flows underwent significant change, with implications for supply-chain concentration and vulnerability metrics.

Norway emerged as the dominant and most stable import partner

Among partner countries, Norway is the most consistent supplier of asbestos to the EU, appearing throughout the period with import values ranging from €2,345 to €7,150 and a moderate coefficient of variation (0.46). Switzerland, once a significant partner (€20,900 in 2015), saw its share collapse by 90.2 %. Nigeria and Gibraltar appear as one-off or irregular suppliers, suggesting occasional re-exports or transhipment rather than established supply chains. The import Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for value fell from 8,032 to 4,129 (−48.6 %), indicating that import origins became less concentrated over time — albeit from a starting point that already indicated high concentration.

Export concentration tightened to a single point

On the export side, the HHI for value rose from 7,596 to 10,000 — the maximum possible value, indicating that exports in 2025 are concentrated entirely in a single direction. The volume HHI similarly reached 10,000. This is the mathematical result of EU exports shrinking to near-zero, with all remaining trace flows directed to one partner.

Net import reliance declined as domestic production data persisted

The net import reliance metric fell from 37.6 % in 2015 to 24.5 % in 2025. This is driven by the denominator: EU production figures (mapped to Prodcom 08.99.29.20, "Other minerals") remain very large — reportedly in the range of 11.6–13.6 billion kg in volume and €1.2–1.3 billion in value. However, this Prodcom code is notably broader than asbestos alone and encompasses other mineral extraction. The net-import-reliance figure should therefore be interpreted with caution: it does not imply that the EU produces asbestos domestically, but rather that the proxy production series it is measured against includes unrelated mineral output.

The trade intensity of the EU in this product also fell (from 57.9 % to 48.2 %), while export propensity declined more modestly (from 22.9 % to 20.7 %). Both indicators confirm that asbestos is a progressively less trade-relevant product for the EU economy.

Conclusion

The EU's trade in crude asbestos (CN 2524) over 2015–2025 tells the story of a commodity in its final phase of economic relevance to the bloc. Trade volumes have collapsed on both sides — imports down 77 % and exports effectively extinguished — in line with the longstanding EU prohibition on asbestos use and extraction. What residual trade exists is irregular, concentrated in a handful of Member States (principally France and Ireland), and served by a narrow set of partners led by Norway. The most striking feature of the period is the 724 % surge in average import unit prices, which pushed total import values higher despite dramatically lower tonnages. This price inflation, punctuated by extreme spikes such as the 2021 US-origin shock, reflects a market so thin that individual shipments can overwhelm annual averages. From a policy perspective, the data suggests that EU vulnerability to asbestos supply disruption is negligible and declining, though the persistent — and possibly rising — unit cost of decontamination-related imports bears monitoring. The asbestos trade story is, ultimately, one of managed obsolescence: a material whose commercial life in Europe is drawing to a close, with residual flows increasingly defined by the costs of its safe removal rather than by any productive use.