In recent years, the industry has gradually formed a consensus that the era of low cost of cement has gone forever, the era of high cost of cement has come, and the comprehensive cost of cement will be higher and higher in the future.
The author believes that the high cost pressure of the cement industry will inevitably be reflected in the following aspects:
First, the implementation
of the new national standard for cement will begin on June 1. In the new national standard of 175-2023 "General Portland Cement", the fineness, composition and strength of cement have been adjusted, which makes most cement enterprises increase the amount of clinker and replace the admixture to meet the new standard. This series of adjustments will undoubtedly push up the manufacturing cost of cement, which is expected to increase by 10 to 30 yuan per ton of cement.
2. Mine resources
As the lifeblood of cement production, the acquisition and management costs of mine resources are gradually increasing in recent years. At the same time, the development of mines will pay more attention to safety and environmental protection, and the improvement of digitalization and intellectualization has become an inevitable trend, which undoubtedly increases the investment of enterprises and leads to the increase of comprehensive cost of cement.
Third, the environmental protection cost
of cement enterprises mainly comes from mine ecological restoration, pollutant emission reduction, ultra-low emission transformation and other aspects, which is not only related to corporate social responsibility, but also directly affects the survival and development of enterprises. On the one hand, many cement enterprises are facing the increase of investment cost in environmental protection upgrading, on the other hand, there are still a lot of environmental protection debts to be solved.
For example, in many regions, the production mines of enterprises are required to adopt the mine ecological restoration mode of "mining while restoring"; cement enterprises that fail to carry out ultra-low emission transformation as expected and have poor environmental performance are also facing the risk of closure and elimination. With the gradual deepening of the construction of national ecological civilization, the investment in environmental protection management of cement enterprises will continue to increase.
Fourth, the input
of energy saving and consumption reduction. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the comprehensive energy consumption of clinker in the cement industry should be controlled at the hard standard of 117 kg standard coal, which is proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four departments. At present, the production capacity with energy efficiency lower than the benchmark level in the cement industry accounts for about 5%, and the production capacity with energy efficiency lower than the benchmark level accounts for about 24%. Therefore, the cement industry is facing severe pressure of energy saving and consumption reduction, and needs to continue to increase investment in energy saving and consumption reduction, thereby increasing the hidden cost of enterprises in the short term.
At present, digitalization and intellectualization have become important measures for cement enterprises to cope with industry changes in the new era. Technologies such as big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and 5G technology are also "magic weapons" for cement enterprises to achieve energy saving, carbon reduction, cost reduction and efficiency enhancement. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has made it clear that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the new generation of information technology has accelerated its penetration into all fields of manufacturing industry, the pace of digital transformation of manufacturing industry has accelerated significantly, the national integration development index has reached 105, the digital popularization rate of enterprise management has reached 80%, the popularization rate of digital R & D and design tools has reached 85%, and the numerical control rate of key processes has reached 68%. The penetration rate of industrial Internet platform is 45%.
Digitalization and intellectualization are the inevitable trend of the development of cement industry, but there are problems of large investment and long payback period, which also increase the cost of cement enterprises.
Sixth, the rise
of labor costs in recent years, the rise of labor costs in the whole society is also a major factor leading to the rise of production and operation costs of cement enterprises. In addition, relevant statistics show that the proportion of staff salaries and operating costs of major cement listed companies is about 15%. Moreover, the current cement industry is still inadequate in terms of employee welfare benefits, and making up for the shortcomings in this area is also the key to achieve high-quality development of the cement industry.
Generally speaking, the cement industry is in a critical period of transformation. The pressure of high cost is not only a challenge, but also an important opportunity to promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry. Only by withstanding these high-cost "tempering" can the cement enterprises stand out in the fierce market competition.
