The Death Throes of the Asbestos Industry
For the first time since 1950, annual global asbestos production fell to less than a million tonnes in 2024. This was not a blip as the low level of production was repeated the following year.
Asbestos is now mined in just four countries – Russia, Kazakhstan, Brazil & China – and is used mostly by Asian and East European countries. For years, India has been the world’s largest asbestos market, importing a grand total of 1,987,636 tonnes between 2020 and 2025. Although asbestos mining was banned in India more than a decade ago, consumption continues unabated particularly of asbestos-cement building products.
 Data sourced from the United States Geological Survey. Chart produced by IBAS.1 |
Dwindling global output generates less money for propaganda campaigns, international love-ins and aggressive political lobbying by asbestos stakeholders. Industry-funded bodies, such as the International Chrysotile Association (ICA), are hanging on by their fingertips.2
 In 2003, ICA personnel were housed in a suite of offices at this prestigious Quebec office building. Picture from the IBAS Archives.3 |
Founded in London in 1976 as the Asbestos International Association, in 1997 the rebranded ICA moved to Canada, the world’s leading asbestos producer throughout most of the 20th century.4 The welcome the trade association received and the incestuous relationships it developed with commercial and government stakeholders proved pivotal. Times were good and remained so for many years.
In 2013, the ICA had 23 directors from 16 countries: Kazakhstan, Russia, Brazil, China, India (3), Indonesia, United Arab Emirates (2), Colombia (2), Mexico (2), Sri Lanka (2), Canada (2), USA, Bolivia, Vietnam, Iran and Senegal.5 Twelve years later, there were three administrators and one President:
- Yury Kozlov, General Director of Uralasbest, Russia’s 2nd biggest asbestos conglomerate;
- Dr. G. Vivekanand, founder and former Chairman of Visaka Industries, one of India's largest asbestos groups; influential family members included MPs and a former Minister;
- Yerbol Nurhozhayev, Chairman of Kostanay Minerals, “a major Kazakhstan-based mining company and the nation's sole producer of chrysotile asbestos;”
- ICA President Emiliano Pelegrin Alonso, a Spanish lawyer, consultant and professional lobbyist based in Belgium.
The ICA is currently registered in Quebec as a non-profit corporation; the names of the ICA personnel listed above were obtained from the website of the Quebec Company Register. Other noteworthy details provided by entries on the ICA’s page included:
- company number – 1147070081;
- activity – trade association to “promote the responsible and safe use of chrysotile;”
- number of employees – none;
- address – 3900-1 Place Ville-Marie, Montreal.6
With zero employees, one must assume that the address provided is one of convenience only. A quick google check ascertained that “the world’s largest law firm Dentons” is also located at the same office building in downtown Montreal.7
The source of ICA’s revenue stream has always been a tightly guarded secret. With dozens of national asbestos bans and increasing restrictions in many countries,8 asbestos markets are shrinking dramatically. Informed observers believe that ICA funding now comes from just two asbestos conglomerates in Russia and Kazakhstan and vested interests in a couple of other countries including India.
The collapsing budget is no doubt adversely affecting efforts to attack civil society and government critics and promote the industry’s mantra of “safe use.” Long-established vehicles for doing so have, in recent years, been dissolved or seemingly disappeared from cybersphere such as: the Canadian Chrysotile Institute (closed), the Asbestos Information Association, North America (disbanded), the Brazilian Chrysotile Institute (mothballed), the Russian “nochrysotileban” website and the Mexican Institute of Fiber Industry A.C. (vanished).
The simple chart at the top of this article is an accurate and useful depiction of the truth long denied by industry propagandists. Asbestos once hailed in Canada as “white gold,” and elsewhere as “the magic mineral,” is now decried as “the killer dust.” The word became so toxic that the voters in the Quebec municipality formerly called Asbestos decided in 2020 to rebrand their town as Val-des-Sources.9 The reality is there for all to see: the asbestos industry is terminal. The sooner the plug is pulled, the better.
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March 26, 2026
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1 Website of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Accessed March 18, 2026.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-center/asbestos-statistics-and-information
2 Website of the International Chrysotile Association. Accessed March 18, 2026.
https://chrysotileassociation.com/
Current details of the ICA as recorded in Quebec’s Company Register as at March 5, 2026 are accessible at:
https://www.registreentreprises.gouv.qc.ca/RQAnonymeGR/GR/GR03/GR03A2_19A_PIU_RechEnt_PC/PageEtatRens.aspx?T1.JetonStatic=c2c8a830-5693-4a0d-be7f-5398ec2315ea&T1.CodeService=S00436
3 The address of the ICA in 2003 was 1640-1200 av. McGill College, Montreal, Canada.
4 Between 1900 and 2000, mines in Québec, Newfoundland, British Columbia and the Yukon produced a total of 61 million tons of chrysotile (white asbestos); most of it was exported.
5 Ruff, K. Exposé of the International Chrysotile Association. February 18, 2013.
https://rightoncanada.ca/?p=1862
6 Current details of the ICA as recorded in Quebec’s Company Register.
https://www.registreentreprises.gouv.qc.ca/RQAnonymeGR/GR/GR03/GR03A2_19A_PIU_RechEnt_PC/PageEtatRens.aspx?T1.JetonStatic=c2c8a830-5693-4a0d-be7f-5398ec2315ea&T1.CodeService=S00436
7 Website of Dentons Law. Accessed March 23, 2026.
https://www.dentons.com/en/
8 IBAS. Current Asbestos Bans. Accessed March 22, 2026.
https://ibasecretariat.org/alpha_ban_list.php
9 Kazan-Allen. L. From Asbestos to Val-des-Sources. October 21, 2020.
https://ibasecretariat.org/lka-from-asbestos-to-val-des-sources.php
