The Sand Mafias

Sand and gravel, a $180B under-regulated global market growing faster than supply, is becoming a serious geopolitical and price flashpoint.

• A $180B invisible market: Sand, gravel and crushed aggregates form a roughly $180 billion industry and the second-most consumed resource on Earth after water, at ~50 billion tons/year.
• Location mismatch drives conflict: Usable river/pit sand covers under 1% of global land, so booming demand in Sub-Saharan Africa (population set to hit 2.5B by mid-century) and Asia outstrips local supply.

Themes, sentiment and reasons are AI-written paraphrases, checked so they never quote an episode. They may contain errors. Not investment advice. Episodes remain the property of their creators.