Garnet Sand (Blasting & Waterjet Grades)

Almandine garnet for abrasive blasting and waterjet cutting, sold by mesh cut and origin

Industrial garnet under HS 2513.20 is almost all almandine, an iron-aluminium garnet of Mohs hardness 7.5–8.5 and specific gravity about 4.1, and it replaced silica sand in blasting because it is hard, heavy, chemically inert and free of respirable free silica. The trade sorts it by particle size and by how it was formed. Grains coarser than 60 mesh (250 microns) go to abrasive blasting; 60–200 mesh (250–74 microns), the band that holds the common 80 mesh waterjet cut, goes to abrasive waterjet cutting; and finer than 200 mesh goes to glass polishing, lapping and garnet paper. Alluvial and beach-sand garnet is rounder and suits blasting; hard-rock garnet crushed from gneiss and schist is angular and cuts faster in a waterjet head. Australia and India hold the largest beach and river deposits, with rock garnet mined in the United States, China and western India. Each lot is sold on sieve analysis to the mesh cut ordered, with bulk density, moisture, conductivity or chloride and free-silica figures on the certificate, because a salt-bearing garnet flash-rusts freshly blasted steel and a silica-bearing one puts the blasting crew inside the respirable silica rules.

India's garnet is a controlled export. DGFT Notification No. 26/2015-2020 of 21 August 2018 placed beach-sand minerals under Chapter 26 of the ITC (HS), including garnet under 2513 20 30, on the State Trading Enterprise list, canalised through Indian Rare Earths Limited; on 24 December 2025 the Ahmedabad bench of CESTAT held in Payal Synthetics v. Commissioner of Customs, Ahmedabad, that the restriction applies to garnet irrespective of source, inland-mined as well as beach, because of the tariff heading and the potential rare-earth content. An Indian garnet offer therefore carries the IREL route or it does not ship, and CBIL works it on that basis. USGS ranks Pakistan seventh in world garnet production in 2024, and Australia, China and South Africa are the other established origins. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers garnet between mines, mineral-sands operators and trader allocations on one side and blasting contractors, shipyards, waterjet shops, abrasive distributors and water-filtration plants on the other, in 25 kg bags and 1 MT jumbo bags in containers or bulk vessel lots, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms. Offers stand against an SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek report giving sieve analysis, garnet content, specific gravity, bulk density, moisture, conductivity or chloride and free silica, a certificate of origin and a safety data sheet. Price is negotiated per lot on mesh cut and origin. Send the application, the mesh and the discharge port, and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.

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Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.