Regions continued Western Europe

World demand for nitric acid will continue to be largely dependent upon demand for solid ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitrogen fertilizer solutions that incorporate ammonium nitrate. Since the 1980s urea has been replacing solid ammonium nitrate as a fertilizer. This has been partially offset by increased use of AN in explosives, polyurethane foams, and nylon 6,6. World nitric acid production declined by about 5 percent between 1987 and 1999, but it is projected to increase marginally by 2005. The major producing regions are Western Europe, the United States, the former Soviet Union (FSU), and Eastern Europe.91,104... 

Pyrite is the most abundant of the metal sulfides. Eor many years, until the Erasch process was developed, pyrite was the main source of sulfur and, for much of the first half of the twentieth century, comprised over 50% of world sulfur production. Pyrite reserves are distributed throughout the world and known deposits have been mined in about 30 countries. Possibly the largest pyrite reserves in the world are located in southern Spain, Portugal, and the CIS. Large deposits are also in Canada, Cypms, Einland, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, the United States, and Yugoslavia. However, the three main regional producers of pyrites continue to be Western Europe Eastern Europe, including the CIS and China. 

What can be expected the next 5-10 years Fuel oil will continue to decrease in all regions, but only to a minor degree in North America, where fuel oil use is already quite low. In Western Europe and Japan the decrease will also be less than experienced during the last 10 years, because fuel oil has now reached a price level equal to coal, taking away incentive for power stations to shift from oil to coal. For the LD Countries a considerable decrease is expected to meet the increasing demand for transportation fuels. 

Phosphate - Both developed and reforming markets are expected to have phosphate surpluses - with a heavy concentration in North America and Eurasia. Although North America has traditionally been a major producer and exporter of phosphate fertilizers, a surplus in Eurasia results from a drastic reduction in fertilizer use during the reform process. In both regions, surpluses will range between 2 and 5 million tonnes and will gradually decrease during the 1995-2005 period. Western Europe will continue to have a deficit. 

The largest gains will be in the Asia Pacific region, mainly due to the development of the tyre industry in China. But the financial crises in Asian countries will depress growth to below the earlier projections. Markets in North America will continue to expand, while Western Europe and Japan will show modest gains as they recover from a low in the first half of the 1990s. 

In 2002, the automotive market accounted for around a quarter of total ABS consumption. The ABS automotive applications market has been growing more slowly in recent years, particularly in the more developed regions such as Western Europe and North America. This trend is due to growing competition from other polymers such as polypropylene and unsaturated polyesters. ABS has however benefited from developments of continuous mass processing technology, which has meant enhanced colour consistency and eliminated the need for painting. The process produces low-gloss products, a desirable feature for applications in the automotive sector. 

The monitoring network in EMB compared to those established in Central and North Europe or even with the Western Mediterranean Basin (e.g. Spain) is rather insufficient. Particularly there is a lack of data on continuous or long-term monitoring of the chemical composition of particulate matter [12], For some substances (e.g. carbonaceous aerosol), the variability is expected to be much larger than can be resolved by integrating the available measurements and the research studies need to be supported by assessment of the local scale variability. In order to understand the temporal evolution (trends) there is also a particular need for aerosol measurements at additional sites with little influence from local and regional emission sources. 

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