The Israeli mining and quarrying sector supplies most of the raw materials required for industry, building and road construction, extracted from various sites around the country.
The total raw material consumption forecast up to the year 2040 is 1.9 billion tons, comprising 1.3 billion tons aggregate, 264 million tons sand and 267 million tons raw materials for cement.
The building and infrastructures industry needs raw materials to make concrete mixtures (sand, gravel and cement), mortar (chalk, clay and gypsum), lime and plaster (sand, lime and cement), mosaics, stone for cladding and flooring, etc. Road construction requires gravel as a subgrade and filler material, as well as quarry sand and basalt gravel for asphalt mixtures.
The supply of mining and quarrying materials is estimated at 50 million tons per year, of which 75% are aggregate for gravel and the subgrade. A quarter of the aggregate (7 to 8 million tons) comes from Judea & Samaria. Other raw materials extracted in large quantities include sand (7 million tons) and limestone for producing cement (5 million tons).
The demand for mining and quarrying products is consistent with the trends in the building and road construction industries, which reflect the state of the economy as a whole. For example, massive immigration in the early 1990s boosted building construction, leading to increased mining and quarrying outputs in those years.
In the first few decades of Israel’s existence, building construction constituted one of the main sectors of the economy, representing 15% of the national product. In the 1980s, with declining immigration and growth, its weight fell to 6%, but with the large influx of immigration from the Former Soviet Union, the weight of investments in the industry rose to 16%.
In 2008, building construction comprised 7.8% of the national product, investments in it totaling NIS 60 billion, of which 56% were directed at residential construction, 25% at non-residential building and 8% at road construction.
According to the data and forecasts compiled to prepare the revised National Outline Plan 14B (2008), the scale of future building construction up to the year 2040, in all spheres, is estimated at 290 million m2. Accordingly, 550 million tons of raw materials (aggregate, sand and cement) will be needed.
The demand estimate for road construction is based on an increase of 88% in the surface area of urban roads (145 million tons of aggregate) and an increase of 180% for inter-urban roads (321 million tons). Road rehabilitation adds 120 million tons to the forecast, making a total of 586 million tons required for roads. The demand estimate for civil engineering projects is 569 million tons.
Source: Israeli Government
