In 2025, the national cement industry delivered a cold report card: the annual output was 1.693 billion tons, down 6.9% from the same period last year, and the cement price in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other core regions even fell below the 200 yuan/ton mark for a time.
In the environment of shrinking demand, the off-peak production, which used to be the "stabilizer" of the industry for a long time, is now facing more and more doubts. The industry has launched an increasingly heated discussion on whether to abolish peak staggering production and let the market take the initiative to clear excess capacity through full competition.
In 2025, the demand for cement continued to decline, the operating costs of enterprises due to the shutdown of kilns continued to rise, the actual effect of off-peak production was greatly weakened, and the implementation became more and more difficult. Although many meetings on peak staggering production have been held in various places, the overall implementation is not ideal, and some enterprises often violate production regulations. The
essence is that the means of peak staggering production has natural limitations in the face of extreme overcapacity. The premise of peak staggering production to stabilize the market is that the industry demand remains relatively stable and has certain support. Once the demand for cement falls sharply, the regulatory role of peak staggering production will be greatly reduced.
At present, China's cement clinker production capacity has exceeded 1.7 billion tons, and the total cement production capacity is close to 3.5 billion tons. If no effective measures can be taken to reduce production capacity, the domestic demand for cement will fall back to about 1 billion tons in the next few years, the utilization rate of clinker production capacity will drop to 35% -40%, and the overall survival situation of the industry will be more severe.
In the
face of unprecedented difficulties, the industry has formed two distinct positions on the retention and abolition of off-peak production.
One view advocates the abolition of off-peak production and the complete regulation by the market. Those who hold this view believe that the current industry capacity has been extremely excessive, and market competition is the general trend. At the stage when demand continues to decline and enterprises are generally under pressure to survive, it is unrealistic to implement peak staggering production in a unified, coordinated and consistent manner. It is better to eliminate inefficient production capacity through the survival of the fittest in the market, so that the industry can return to the basic balance between supply and demand.
The other side insists on continuing to implement and strengthen peak staggering production. They believe that in the current complex situation, peak staggering production is still the most effective means to alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand in the short term. Stabilizing the market order by staggering peak and limiting production, and promoting capacity removal at a moderate pace, can enable the industry to achieve a smooth transition in the downward cycle of demand and avoid severe shocks.
Off-peak production will eventually withdraw from the industry stage
. From the past, off-peak production is more like a "palliative" to alleviate the plight of the industry, rather than a "cure" to solve the problem of overcapacity. Under the general trend of deep adjustment of the industry, it will eventually complete its historical mission.
For a long time, many people in the industry have been hoping to provide a buffer period for the transformation and upgrading of the industry through peak staggering production, so as to gain time and space for substantive capacity removal, enterprise merger and reorganization, etc.
However, looking back on the past ten years, although peak-staggering production has supported the operation of the industry in a certain period of time, it has not really promoted the withdrawal of backward production capacity, but has made the problem of overcapacity more and more serious, which also proves that peak-staggering production can not replace the real sense of capacity removal.
How to establish a new consensus and restore the healthy ecology of the industry in the game of the stock market? China Cement Network will hold the " 15th China Cement Industry Summit and TOP100 Award Ceremony " in Hangzhou on April 9-10, and the " Cement Economy 50 Forum (C50) " will be held at the same time. The Summit will build a platform for the docking of supply and demand and the collision of ideas, explore the path of green transformation and intelligent upgrading from the dimensions of macroeconomic insight, industrial chain synergy and technological innovation breakthroughs, plan a layout for the "15th Five-Year Plan" green development of the industry, and work together to create a new chapter of high-quality development!
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