Hello, I'm Eric Gosse. I am the Vice-President Bitumen for TOTAL. I'm in charge of the Bitumen business of TOTAL. So you have started to familiarize yourself with bitumen, the history, the definition but also the manufacturing process. This video will give you some insight into the markets of bitumen. We will explore the various continents. And see how the market are organized, we will also see the main usages of the bitumen, how it is used. Let's get the global picture first. 100 million ton, that is a first key figure. That's equivalent to 2 million barrels per day. If you are more familiar with this scent. It is the approximate amount of bitumen that is produced or consumed on a yearly basis across the whole world. And Asia Pacific is the leading region with around one third of the global consumption. China itself is over 20 million tons. North America used to be the biggest market. It's now around 23 million tons. Middle East is around 10 million. Russia and neighboring states, seven. Latin America, seven. Last, the smallest is Africa with 2 million tons of production. And around four million tons of demand. Europe is around 15 million tons of demand and 17 million tons of production. Markets are regional. It is key to understand that bitumen is not a product with a high value. And it is usually transported in bulk at a temperature of 160 180 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the cost of transport is quickly a high percentage of the total cost of the product. As a result, markets are structured mainly around the point of production, the refineries in Europe for instance. There the original production meets the local demand. Yet as you may have noticed some imbalances persist between supplying the original demand. For instance continental production of Bitumen in Africa is around 2 million tons, yet demand pitches at 4, withe the opposite in Europe. Africa is said to be a "short market". Europe to be a "long market". The same could be said between China and Korea. China, these last years, has not produced enough bitumen for its market, and Korea has over-produced. So, trading between the short zones and the long zones is starting to happen. We estimate that around 15% of the bitumen moves from one place to another. This transport requires specialized dedicated vessels. You will have a session on the topic of transport. Yet, as we mentioned, transport costs accounts for a significant part of the cost of bitumen. If you were to look today at specialized newspaper on this topic, you would find significant price differences between markets. For instance, as of the end of October 2015, you would've have found the price of $250 per ton in Europe, $400 per ton in North America or East China, $350 per ton in west of South Africa. The dynamic on the market is the following: as demand pents up or as supply reduces, regional market prices go up, up to the point where market participants find it attractive to import bitumen and commit themselves to invest in such facilities. The opposite is also true, when demand goes down, or supply becomes too abundant, regional market prices go down, to the point where local producers find it attractive to produce or alternatively find it attractive to export from their regional market. So, now that we know where bitumen is produced and how market are structured, we are getting into what the bitumen is used for. Yet, let's not forget that bitumen bases can also be a feedstock for other processes or products supplying significant markets. You have come along this in a specialised session on the manufacturing process. As you may have guessed, road construction is the main outlet for bitumen, where it can be used in one way or another. Yet as a whole it accounts for around 90% of bitumen consumption. Bitumen can be used as such, it's the so-called "paving grade" bitumen. It's then mixed with aggregate to produce asphalt mix in dedicated plants. Grades of Bitumen vary according to countries and so have to meet different specifications. (European specifications, superpave in the US. You will learn about these later). They also vary according to the type of road to be built, the traffic it has to bear amongst other things. Bitumen can also be used in combination with other components to manufacture "bituminous binders", be it water and additives for emulsions, crumrubber for CRMB or polymers for PMB. They have then different and sometimes enhanced properties compared to the paving grade. You will learn later on all these applications of bitumen in forthcoming videos. Lastly, I'd like to mention the other usages of bitumen for the remaining 10%. We usually refer to them as industrial usages of bitumen. Bitumen is a very good waterproofing material, and it has been used as such for ages. It is no surprise that you find here one of the main usages outside of the road construction for example, in waterproofing membranes or in shingles. Bitumen is also an excellent glue. A road is nothing different from gravel that is glued together by bitumen. So bitumen is also used in the construction industry, for instance to glue insulating cellular glass materials on the wall or on the roof. So, the key learning points of this session are: - markets structured regionally around the production points. Markets are generally balanced. - worldwide production is around 100 million tons. 90% of that production goes into road construction in different forms of bitumen, either as paving grade or as bituminous binders. Thank you very much for your attention. I hope you've found this session interesting.