Industry Facts
Bitumen production
Refined bitumen is derived from crude petroleum. The European bitumen industry (EU 15) produces some 16 million tonnes each year for use in the manufacture of road materials and a wide variety of specialist building and industrial products. 85 - 90 per cent is used in the construction and maintenance of bituminous, or asphalt roads.
The production is a specialist activity and is not carried out in all oil refineries. Bitumen requires crude oils with specific characteristics and only some crude oils are suitable. There are 94 oil refineries in Europe (EU15) of which 63 produce bitumen.
Bitumen is an engineering material and is produced to meet a variety of end-use specifications based upon physical properties. Bitumen may be customised for special road applications and hundreds of grades have also been developed for the non-road industrial segment, including roofing and sound-proofing.
Asphalt
Asphalt is typically a mix of approximately 95 percent aggregate and sand, and 5 percent of bitumen, which acts as the binder. There are over 4,000 hot mix asphalt plants in Europe, producing some 300 million tonnes of hot mix asphalt per year.
Asphalt is fully recyclable and recycling has increased significantly in recent years. Quantities recycled directly back into road surfaces vary from country to country, but can be as high as 70%.
European Roads
The European road network (EU25) is nearly five million kilometres long.
Its composition in thousands of kms. is:
- Motorways: 59.8
- National roads: 355.1
- Secondary or regional roads: 1,267.4
- Other roads: 3,264.1
The European traffic population is 213 million passenger and 31 million commercial vehicles.