SIC 3532 Mining Machinery
SIC 3532
This category includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing heavy machinery and equipment used by the mining industries, such as coal breakers, mine cars, mineral cleaning machinery, concentration machinery, core drills, coal cutters, portable rock drills, and rock crushing machinery. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing construction machinery are classified in SIC 3531: Construction Machinery and Equipment; those manufacturing well-drilling machinery are classified in SIC 3533: Oil and Gas Field Machinery and Equipment; and those manufacturing coal and ore conveyors are classified in SIC 3535: Conveyors and Conveying Equipment.
333131
Mining Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing
Mining machinery and equipment manufacturers experienced a downturn in the late 1990s. Diminishing demand for domestically produced minerals fueled the initial decline, decreasing mining activity substantially. To combat weakened demand, mining equipment companies relied on the export market for business opportunities, but this market has been far from stable. The Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s decimated exports of mining equipment, as did the collapse of the Russian economy. Mining equipment shipments in 2000 were valued at $2.053 billion, compared to $3.003 billion, in 1998.
The mining equipment industry is highly dependent on mining activity in the United States and the world. When demand for mined materials is high, mine operators order new machinery; when demand is low, orders fall off. Mining machinery manufacturers are cushioned somewhat from demand cycles because different kinds of mines use similar machinery. Thus a decline in coal mining, for example, may be offset by a boom in salt mining.
The market share divisions within this industry were split among several categories. Underground mining machinery claimed 30.9 percent of the industry in 1997, up from 15.4 percent in 1995. In 1997, crushing, pulverizing, and screening machinery held 21.6 percent of the market, a jump of over 10 percent from 1995. Drills and other mining machinery, not elsewhere classified, controlled 5.3 percent of the market, down from 9.4 percent two years earlier. The remaining categories accounted for the other 42.2 percent.
The mining machinery industry draws its supplies from a variety of sources. Mill shapes and forms made from carbon alloy, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum are the most highly consumed materials. Castings from gray and malleable iron, steel, aluminum, and copper, and forgings from iron and steel are also heavily consumed. Fabricated structural metal products, speed changers, gears, industrial high-speed drives, and roller bearings constitute other significant materials consumed by the industry.
In 1997, 297 establishments manufactured mining machinery and equipment. Of this total number, 129 were larger companies that employed 20 or more workers. West Virginia led all other states in the number of businesses engaged in this industry, with 38 factories; Pennsylvania was home to 27 mining machinery manufacturers, followed by Illinois with 18. In terms of shipment volume, Pennsylvania generated the highest dollar-amount with $703.4 million, 26.6 percent of total industry-wide shipment value. West Virginia placed second, with shipments worth $223.4 million, 8.5 percent of the total.
Mining came late to the United States, for early surveyors assumed that there were no significant mineral resources to be found in the country. Politicians and statesmen arguing over currency shortly after the Revolutionary War ruled out gold and silver because the United States supposedly did not have the resources to produce this type of exchange. Benjamin Franklin said, "Gold and silver are not the produce of North America, which has no mines." Another eighteenth-century observer...
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