As part of the trade war with China, the US government has recently proposed raising tariffs on cement related industries. According to the proposal, a 10% tariff will be imposed on cement-related industries from the end of August 2018 and will be formally implemented after a consultation period. The cement industries affected by this are: limestone solvent, quicklime, slaked lime, gypsum, anhydrite, Portland clinker , alum, slag, sulphate and hydraulic cement, white cement, Portland cement, alumina cement, slag cement, refractory cement, cement additives, Building materials with cement as raw material and more related varieties.
Figure 1: Exports
of hydraulic cement and clinker from China to the United States, 2012-2017 Source: USGS
Figure 2: Major importers
of hydraulic cement and clinker in the United States in 2017 Source: USGS
On the face of it, the tariff increase will not have a direct impact on the cement industry in China or the United States. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States imported 13.6 million tons of cement and clinker in 2017, including 2 million tons from China. China is only the third largest cement importer in the United States, after Canada and Greece. According to China's National Bureau of Statistics, China produced 2.3 billion tons of cement in 2017. Considering China and its huge cement industry, the loss of the U.S. market will not have a great impact on China's cement industry. Of course, if these imports and exports come from a smaller cement market, it will cause a completely different result. The potential shortage of cement in the United States is likely to be filled by some of the world's surplus cement producers, with Vietnam, Iran and Indonesia at the top of the list.
Data from the U.S. Geological Survey also show that in 2017, cement imported from China by the United States was cheaper than cement from other countries. In the whole year of 2017, the total value of cement imported by the United States from China was 132 million US dollars, including insurance and freight, and the cost per ton of cement ranked only fifth among 32 importing countries. Even with a 10% tariff increase, Chinese cement is still the eighth cheapest cement. If these data are accurate, the tariff increase will not have a great impact on China's import and export of cement.
China's cement industry gives the impression that China is the world's largest cement producer, but China's annual cement exports are very small, which is also supported by the above data. Amity & Marcia Reinhardt Cement Distribution & Consulting (Ad and Marcia Ligthart & # 39; s Cement Distribution Consultants) The downward performance of China's export cement in recent years has been attributed to the lack of deep-water transportation environment in China and the lack of attention from the government. China already has a huge cement production capacity, and if the cement export industry is treated correctly, China can also become the world's first cement exporter.
Other cement-related materials affected by the imposition of tariffs include gypsum materials or curing auxiliary materials such as slag powder and fly ash. Considering that the main importers of gypsum materials in the United States are Canada, Spain, Thailand and Oman, the impact of the Sino-US trade war on gypsum materials is minimal. Those secondary gel materials are more uncertain about this impact, but will not substantially change the U.S. market. According to the US Geological Survey, the annual import of slag powder in the United States increased by 2 million tons from 2015 to 2017, while the main importing countries were Japan, Canada, Spain and Germany. Charles Zeynel of Zager International pointed out at the International Conference on Slag Powder in 2018 that the annual export volume of China's slag powder is about 6 million tons, accounting for 25% of the market share of the international trade of slag.
All of this gives a general picture of the impact of U.S. tariffs on China's cement and related industries, but the biggest news in the cement industry recently may not be the U.S. trade war with China. Recently, FLSmidth of Denmark signed a framework agreement with China National Building Material (CNBM), the world's largest cement producer and one of the largest cement equipment manufacturers.
Recently, most of the new cement production lines in the world will involve Chinese contractors. In the past, these Chinese contractors may choose to complete their own construction projects, but now they will more or less apply some European engineering technology. What I want to point out here is that if the United States wants to build new cement production lines or carry out technical transformation of existing production lines, it will be the best choice to go through a Chinese company with technical cooperation with Europe. At present, the technical transformation budget of Lehigh Hanson & # 39; s Mitchell plant in India has reached $600 million, which is far more than total value of cement imported from China by the United States in 2017.
浙公网安备33010802003254号