By Cyber Era NG Special Correspondent
According to recent market research the “Water Blocking Tapes Market by Conductive Type (Conductive, Semi-conductive, Non-conductive), Application (Optical Fiber cable, Submarine cable, Power cable Communication cable) and Region (North America, Europe, APAC, RoW) – Global Forecast to 2027”, size is projected to grow from US$378 million in 2022 to US$ 495 million by 2027, at a CAGR of 5.5 per cent during the forecast period. The increasing use of water blocking tapes in construction projects is one of the most significant factors projected to drive the growth of the water blocking tapes market.
Submarine cables application will grow faster in the water blocking tapes application segment.
Submarine cabling industry is growing at a much faster pace in-order to reduce the redundancy among the servers in different continents and countries along with reducing the latency. These newer submarine data cables are using water blocking tapes for reducing the chances of exposing the fiber optics to sea water which may damage the cables and affect the purpose.
Recently with the advancements and shift towards green energy generation and reduction of carbon emissions, the offshore wind energy generation has seen growth in implementation. These offshore wind farms are connected to grids in the land grid via submarine cables. These cables are manufactured with water blocking tapes for resisting the entry of water into the tapes. This helps in extending the life of cables and also prevents from short circuiting. These activities helps increasing the consumption of submarine cables in the market, in turn increasing the growth of water blocking tapes usage in the market
Non-conductive type to be the fastest-growing segment in the global water blocking tapes market in terms of value and volume
Non-conductive type is expected to be the fastest-growing segment in the water blocking tapes market during the forecast period. Non-conductive type water blocking tapes are manufactured from synthetic and natural rubber. They possess characteristics such as high swellability and high electrical resistivity due to their ability to adhere well to. Non-conductive type water blocking tapes allows usage of tapes in multiple use cases.
Water blocking tapes are the combination of multiple layers of lightweight, non-woven fabric along with one or multiple swellable water blocking compounds. Water blocking compounds can include water-absorbent polymers that get disposed under layers of fabric by using the ultrasonic bonding technique. These water swellable tapes efficiently absorb liquid at the point of insulation failure and get quickly swelled to block further ingress. Different conductive types of water blocking tapes are used according to the performance requirements. These tapes get widely used in optical fiber, submarine, communication, power, and other cables.
Various countries across the globe are concentrating in improving their energy self-sufficiency and improving their energy infrastructure. Various developing countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil South Africa and others are investing in developing a countrywide grid to meet the energy demands, improving the standards of power delivery at an improved technology and reduced cost of operations. Most of the power distribution cables are not great in energy efficiency.
The newer power cable technology to mitigate these issues are manufactured to reduce the energy losses during transmission whilst improving the safety factors of those cables. These newer cables market is expected to grow with the increased investments, which will positively drive the water blocking tapes application in the power cable industry applications. According to OECD’s report, the energy consumption from the industrial sector is about 39 per cent, transportation is 27 per cent, 19 per cent is residential sector, 8 per cent from commercial sector, and remaining by agricultural and other sectors. The global water blocking tapes market size is expected to grow from US$ 378 million in 2022 to US$ 495 million by 2027, projecting a CAGR of 5.5 per cent during the forecast period between 2022 and 2027.
Companies operating in the water blocking tapes market have strengthened their position by adopting expansions, partnerships, agreements, new product/technology launches, joint ventures, contracts, and mergers & acquisitions from 2017-2022. For instance, in December 2020, Chase Corporation acquired all capital stocks of AB Chimie, which is a developer of coating for electronics, at US$ 21.4 million, which was excluding the acquisition related cost of US$ 274,000 with a potential earnout based on performance potentially worth an additional US$ 8.3 million at the time of transaction. The company is planning to expand its manufacturing capacity for Asia region as it is one of the fastest growing markets. In this new plant, around 40 million square meters adhesive tapes will get manufactured every year.
Chase corporation (US), Nitto Denko Corporation (Japan), Hanyu Cable Materials (China), Scapa Group Ltd (UK), Intertape Polymer Group (Canada), Berry Global Inc. (US), Unitape UK Ltd., (UK), and Sika AG (Switzerland) are some of the key players in the water blocking tapes market..
