In the past few years, the cement industry has staged a "roller coaster of wealth". In the golden period of record high profits per ton, those 2500t/d or even 2000t/d small lines that had been labeled as "backward production capacity" were not eliminated, but made a lot of money. However, after the tide recedes, every penny earned by these enterprises with luck is being lost by their own "strength". The fatal illusion
of
high profit period is undeniable, in the cycle of cement industry profits climbing to a high of 186.7 billion yuan around 2019, the hot market really makes all production capacity "have food to eat". Even a small line with a daily output of 2000 tons can make a day's money under the adjustment of high price and off-peak production.
The problem is that many enterprises regard market dividends as their own competitiveness. Is making money the norm? Apparently not. It is a special window under the triple dividend superposition of stable demand, limited supply and strong price. But the fact that "money has been made" is so convincing that many companies have made a fatal judgment that the market will continue to be good. What if the new line
which is
put into production, that is, unemployed, makes money? Build a new line. Lines with a daily output of 5000 tons or even larger production capacity have been launched one after another, borrowing when their own funds are not enough, and the leverage is full. And the result? Demand is coming in faster than anyone expected turning point. Capacity utilization rate fell below 50%, industry profits fell from 186.7 billion yuan to about 30 billion yuan in 2025, and the national cement output of 1.693 billion tons in 2025 was the lowest since 2010.
Figure: In recent years, the total
profit of the cement industry has been decided at a high level and put into production at a low level. Some of the new lines have not even been put into normal production- "putting into production means unemployment". The logical chain is clear: high profits → misjudged demand → massive investment → serious overcapacity → price collapse → idle new lines → debt overhang. Every step is taken by oneself.
Some people may say that the cement industry is cyclical, and it is good to get through the bottom. But I'm afraid it's different this time. The era of real estate development has come to an end, the driving force of infrastructure construction has continued to weaken, and demand is not a "cyclical decline", but a structural long-term downward trend. This means that those new lines built for "imaginary demand" may never be able to wait for the day of full production.
Don't treat luck as ability
. "Money earned by luck will be lost by strength"-for those enterprises that expand blindly in the high profit period, this sentence is a prophecy. The money earned in the high profit period does not mean that you have the ability to make money continuously. Business decision-makers need to answer the most basic question: Is your production line competitive after excluding market dividends? What the
industry is experiencing is not an ordinary cycle, but a profound structural shuffle. Those who can survive are not the boldest, but the clearest.
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