Italy'S Minerals

Italy's varied mineral industry is hampered by the size and distribution of its deposits and the seemingly inordinate amount of bureaucracy involved in getting new projects or expansions off the ground. That said, there is more to Italy's industrial minerals sector than meets the eye, with significant deposits of feldspar, talc, bentonite and pumice. Italy is Europe's largest feldspar producer with the majority of it going to Sassualo, the ceramic tile capital of the world, where consumption has soared. However, proving a significant threat to this market is Turkey where feldspar producers have swamped the export market with cheap material.