of June 3, Pinglu Canal Madao Hub and Qishi Hub began to fill with water. The 134.2-kilometer-long "Western New Land-Sea Passage" backbone project has been fully opened to water and has entered the stage of water commissioning. It is expected to be officially opened in September this year. For the cement industry, this is not the opening ceremony of an ordinary canal-it means that the "outward transportation dilemma" of cement in Southwest China, which has been delayed for many years, has finally come to the spillway. However, this is the "key" for Guangxi cement enterprises, but it may be a "hammer" for the whole southeast coastal cement market.
According to the data of China Cement Network, the production capacity of cement clinker in Guangxi has exceeded 100 million tons, while the demand in the region is far from enough to absorb, and a large amount of production capacity depends on foreign transportation to survive. The problem is that cement is a typical "short-legged product"-the economic transportation radius of highway is generally only 200 to 300 kilometers, and further, the freight can eat up all the profits. For a long time, there is only one "single-plank bridge" for the export of cement
in Guangxi: the Xijiang River. Every year, tens of millions of tons of cement flow down the Xijiang River into the Pearl River Delta market. However, this golden waterway has three weak points: first, it is seasonally cut off from navigation, and the transport capacity is greatly reduced during the dry season; second, the cargo flow is large, the waterway is crowded, and the blockage of ships is like a traffic jam; third, the lower reaches of the Xijiang River go straight to the Pearl River Estuary, the route is single, the destination is highly concentrated in the corner of the Pearl River Delta, and the market competition has already become the Red Sea. The trump card of
the Pinglu Canal is hidden in three sets of numbers.
First, the voyage is shortened by about 560 kilometers. Goods from southwest China go to sea via Pinglu Canal to Beibu Gulf, which shortens the inland river voyage by more than 560 kilometers compared with Guangzhou Port. For a freight-sensitive commodity like cement, 560 kilometers is a line of life and death, which alone can reduce the cost of cement arriving at the port by a large margin, based on the cost of water transportation ton kilometers.
Second, the navigation capacity of 5000 tons. The Pinglu Canal is navigable to 5000-ton ships, which means that cement clinker from the southwest inland can reach the port of Beibu Gulf directly. Compared with the dry season of some sections of the Xijiang waterway, only 1000-ton boats can be used, and the capacity of the Xijiang waterway has been improved by an order of magnitude. The
third and most disruptive point is that the destination is completely open. In the past, Guangxi cement went east along the Xijiang River, and the terminal was the Pearl River Delta, plus Hainan at most. As soon as the Pinglu Canal is opened, the cement reaches the Beibu Gulf. To the east, it can be transported by sea to radiate the Pearl River Delta and the coastal areas of Fujian, and to the south, it can go straight to Hainan. As soon as
the Pinglu Canal was opened to traffic, the traditional cement transport channel was completely subverted:
Guizhou cement was connected to the Pinglu Canal via Hongshui River, Qianjiang River and Yujiang River, and was sold directly to the Beibu Gulf and the coastal areas of Guangdong; Yunnan Cement relies on the channel of Youjiang River, Yujiang River and Pinglu Canal, which is also shipped from Beibu Gulf Port at low cost; Sichuan and Chongqing cement can not only be transported by sea along the Yangtze River eastward, but also be transported by inland rivers to the Xijiang River system through the Pinglu Canal, which has a prominent advantage over the freight of Guangzhou Port. To put it bluntly, the Pinglu Canal is like a "funnel", bringing hundreds of millions of tons of cement production capacity from the southwest to the Beibu Gulf, and then from the shipping channel to the southeast coast. What does
this mean for the southeast coastal market? The pool on the supply side has suddenly become larger, but the demand side has not expanded synchronously. The Pearl River Delta market consumes about 150 million tons of cement annually, of which a considerable proportion depends on Guangxi and local supply. Once the cement in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan can enter at a lower cost, the balance of supply and demand will be further tilted.
Fujian coastal market is the same-in the past, it was limited by the barrier of mountainous areas in Western Fujian, and the cost of cement from other places was high. Once the Pinglu Canal was opened, cement could be transported northward from Beibu Gulf to Xiamen Port and Fuzhou Port in two or three days. What is
more remarkable is that this shock is not a one-off. The Pinglu Canal is navigable all the year round, not a seasonal tool. This means that the cyclical adjustment mechanism of "Guangxi cement can not go out during the dry season of the Xijiang River and the price of the Pearl River Delta rises" in the past will be largely ineffective. The supply side has an additional "water pipe" which is open all the year round, while the demand side does not have an additional pool to receive water.
Of course, everything depends on the final freight rate. Although water transport is cheap, the cost of transshipment, loading and unloading, and port costs are superimposed, and ultimately whether it can be more competitive than existing channel, we have to wait for the detailed account after navigation. Moreover, Guangdong, Fujian and other coastal provinces are not without the power to fight back-the barriers built by local cement enterprises in environmental protection, energy consumption, carbon indicators and other aspects can not be completely destroyed by a canal in the short term.
Generally speaking, what the Pinglu Canal has brought to the cement industry is not simply "one more road"-it is systematically dismantling the market order that has long been defined by geographical radius. In the past, cement enterprises competed for the advantages of mines, production lines and location. Once the canal was opened, the balance of logistics costs was tilted and the competition radius was lengthened. In September, the Pinglu Canal was officially opened to navigation, and the cement market along the southeast coast, which has been playing for more than ten years, will probably have to be reshuffled.
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