cement has intensified, and peak staggering production has been highly expected by some people in the industry, calling it "no way out". However, it is also an indisputable fact that the intensity of peak staggering is increasing, the time is getting longer and longer, and the effectiveness is getting weaker and weaker.
Might as well change an angle, from "overproduce" this problem will think the strategy that cement industry breaks the situation. How serious is the overproduction situation in the
cement industry? According to the list of clinker production lines published by a
southern province in 2023 , there are 45 clinker production lines in the province, of which 41 are in production, involving 42.129 million tons of clinker production capacity. In
2023, the output of clinker in the province was 53.8931 million tons. Calculated by 60 days of off-peak production in 2023, 29 of the 41 production lines were overproduced, accounting for 70.73%, and the overproduction rate of all 29 lines was higher than 10%, and the production line with the highest overproduction rate even reached 70.49%.
According to the experience of the industry, it is "normal" for cement clinker production lines to overproduce by 30% on average, and the overproduction capacity of some large lines may be stronger. The existence
of overproduction greatly weakens the effect of peak staggering production.
Taking a northwest province as an example, it is estimated that the demand for cement in the province will be around 44 million tons this year. According to the off-peak production plan announced by the province, the kiln is planned to be shut down for 200 days in 2024, and the actual production days are 165 days.
According to the design capacity, 30 million tons of clinker can be produced, equivalent to about 44.8 million tons of cement production capacity, basically achieving a balance between production and marketing.
If calculated according to 1.3 times of clinker overproduction, 39 million tons of clinker can be produced, equivalent to about 58.2 million tons of cement production capacity, and the production capacity is still seriously excessive.
Recently, some provinces have specified "production according to the approved production capacity" in the off-peak production documents.
Hubei Provincial Department of Economy and Information and Hubei Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the Notice on Effectively Doing a Good Job in Normalized Peak-Staggered Production of Cement Industry in 2024, which pointed out that "all cement clinker production lines should organize production and carry out peak-staggered production in strict accordance with the approved capacity". The Detailed Rules for the Implementation of Normalized Peak-Staggered Production Management in Sichuan Cement Industry (Draft for Public Consultation) issued by the Department of Economy and Information Technology of
Sichuan Province points out that "cement clinker production enterprises organize production according to the registered production capacity, formulate peak-staggered production plans according to the requirements, and do a good job of peak-staggered production".
Weakening the replacement of capacity reduction, increasing production and transformation, the industry's overcapacity has been intensified instead of being resolved. If we continue to develop blindly and spontaneously, the porridge of cement will really burn from burning to burning. To solve the problem of overproduction, it is important to organize production in strict accordance with the approved production capacity or to deal with the increasingly serious problem of overcapacity in the short term!