Aluminum Oxide - Stabilized?

A couple of months ago I put a post explaining some of the basics of Aluminum Oxide Grit. What I did not mention was that the ore that is used as the source for Aluminum Oxide is sourced from around the world. While a lot of the crude material is actually refined and processed in the US, it still needs to be shipped around the world.

Increasing crude costs mostly due to increased demand from developing countries (read: China) have combined perfectly with increasing shipping costs and the decreasing US dollar to produce price increases like we have never seen. In some cases, the cost to source, ship, refine and package Aluminum Oxide has doubled in the past couple of years.

Fortunately, it seems that some of the cost pressures are stabilizing so that pricing for Aluminum Oxide may soon fall back into the historical pricing pattern. I only hope that is sooner rather than later.