On Pinglu Canal Again: Will Guangxi Cement Really "Discharge Flood" into Hainan?

2026-08-21 10:02:46

There has been a very optimistic voice circulating in the society: when the Pinglu Canal is open to navigation and the 5,000-6,000-ton river-sea intermodal new energy ship is put into operation, the water transport freight will be greatly reduced. The cement and aggregate from Guangxi can be directly transported to Hainan, and Qinzhou Port is no longer needed for transshipment; when the reconstruction of Pingtangkou Railway Bridge in Hengxian County is completed and the logistics cost of the left and right rivers is further optimized, the building materials from Guangxi will pour into Hainan on a large scale, and the original market pattern in the island will be completely rewritten.

There has been a very optimistic voice circulating in the

society: when the Pinglu Canal is open to navigation and the 5,000-6,000-ton river-sea intermodal new energy ship is put into operation, the water transport freight will be greatly reduced. The cement and aggregate from Guangxi can be directly transported to Hainan, and Qinzhou Port is no longer needed for transshipment; when the reconstruction of Pingtangkou Railway Bridge in Hengxian County is completed and the logistics cost of the left and right rivers is further optimized, the building materials from Guangxi will pour into Hainan on a large scale, and the original market pattern in the island will be completely rewritten.

This set of deduction sounds very smooth: the channel is open, the big ship is in place, and the logistics cost is reduced. Guangxi Cement However, If we look at it layer by layer, the technical level can be achieved, which does not mean that the business scenario will be realized immediately. Channel and ship are only tools, and the freight rate is ultimately the result of the game between supply and demand, which is not suitable for simple linear derivation.

First, the hardware conditions are indeed available

, which should be recognized first.

The Pinglu Canal is planned to be open to 5000-ton river-sea direct ships. The nominal capacity of the new green energy ship is 5000 tons, and the actual cargo can be close to 6000 tons. It gets rid of the old problem of limited draft in the dry season of the Xijiang River every year, and does not need to bypass the Pearl River Delta-starting from the Guangxi factory area, through the Pinglu Canal to the Beibu Gulf, and then to Hainan, the transit link is greatly reduced.

From the technical point of view of ship type, new energy river and sea ships such as methanol and LNG have mature operation cases in the Yangtze River Delta, which can be built and run smoothly.

What really restricts the market is not the technology itself, but the logic of business landing.

Second, the cost of new energy ships is high, and the return cycle is a hard threshold

. Many people ignore the core cost difference: a 5,000-6,000-ton methanol lithium-ion new energy ship costs 26 million to 33 million; Even with local subsidies for new energy ships, shipowners still have to bear high depreciation and financial interest, and operating costs are much higher than those of traditional ships.

Shipbuilding is a commercial investment, not a public welfare project.

This route also has a fatal shortcoming: the supply of goods tends to be one-way. Basically, cement and aggregates are sent to Hainan in one direction, and it is unknown whether the return supply can be cultivated in the future. If it is difficult to form a two-way cargo flow for a long time, the return cycle of tens of millions of large ships will be greatly extended.

In the current environment of industry downturn and weak demand, private capital will not pile up shipbuilding without thinking. A large number of 5000-ton new energy river and sea vessels will only be put into operation step by step, and it is impossible to concentrate on the outbreak in the short term.

Third, the freight rate does not look at the ship cost, but at the market supply and demand

. There is a common cognitive misunderstanding in the industry: as long as the cost of water transportation per ton falls, the market freight rate will fall sharply.

But the real logic of the water transport market is diametrically opposite: the cost of shipping is only the bottom line of the freight rate, and what really determines the market is always the relationship between supply and demand.

Even if the theoretical operating cost is lower, as long as the cargo is more and the ship is less, the freight rate is bound to be strong. Only after a long period of accumulation of excess transport capacity, freight will be pressed to a low level. Just like the low freight rate along the Xijiang River, it is not formed overnight, but after decades of development, thousands of ships have gradually settled down, which has created the current freight rate pattern.

With reference to the mature river-sea direct market in the Yangtze River Delta, large ships of 5000-6000 tons are operated in batches all the year round, and the channel conditions far exceed those of the Xijiang and Pinglu canals, but the freight rate still fluctuates sharply with the supply of goods in the off-peak season.

It is enough to show that the upgrade of channel and ship type is never a sufficient condition for the decline of freight rate.

Fourth, Hainan has its own natural market moat, which is by no means a rush to break

all the optimistic deduction from the outside world. Almost all of them stand in the perspective of Guangxi's shipment, seriously underestimating Hainan's local market defense barriers.

Hainan is totally different from such open markets as Fujian and Hong Kong. The concentration of production capacity in Fujian market is low, there are many brands in the market, and the pattern is scattered. After the entry of foreign sources, it is easy to be involved in full bidding. Hong Kong is a small place, and foreign sources can quickly penetrate. On the contrary, Hainan is an independent island closed-loop market with obvious innate advantages.

First, access to the island is extremely limited. There are not many wharfs in Hainan that can dock a large number of building materials ships, and there is a natural physical bottleneck for foreign clinker and cement to go ashore on a large scale, which makes it impossible to achieve unlimited dumping.

Second, the depth of the market is a complete closed-loop. Cement is a short-legged product, with a sales radius of 100 kilometers. After the foreign goods go ashore, they radiate the surrounding limited area, forming a closed-loop market in the island. The market has its own system, and there will be no single-point breakthrough and full-line collapse.

Third, the supply pattern is highly concentrated and the ability to resist pressure is very strong. There are only three local clinker enterprises with kilns

in Hainan, and there is no chaos of manufacturers everywhere in Guangdong and Guangxi. Among them, the leading enterprises monopolize nearly 50% of the market share and more than 60% of the local clinker production capacity in the island, and the oligopoly pattern is clear. The most important feature of a

highly concentrated market is that it is easy to reach consensus, consistent with the outside world, and has a strong ability to stabilize prices.

On the other hand, in Guangdong and Guangxi markets, Fujian and other markets, manufacturers bargain with each other, roll up internal friction, and there is no unified rhythm. This

alone is destined that Hainan will not be easily broken down by foreign sources of goods.

Fifth, the real situation of Hainan market deduces

the long-term value of Pinglu Canal from all dimensions of comprehensive channel conditions, ship costs, capacity delivery and local pattern. It has indeed opened up the logistics channel for Guangxi building materials to enter the island, and will form a certain supplement to Hainan's supply in the long run.

But in the short term, the market will not be subversive.

On the one hand, 5000-ton new energy ships will not be launched in batches, and the release of transport capacity is a slow process; on the other hand, due to the lack of return cargo sources, the progress of infrastructure transformation, the cautious investment of shipowners, and the multiple constraints of local barriers in Hainan, there is no basis for an avalanche decline in freight rates.

The so-called "Guangxi cement flood discharge into Hainan" is only an idealized paper deduction, not the industry reality that is about to land.

In the final

review of the impact of the Pinglu Canal on Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan, we must distinguish between technical feasibility and commercial reality. The upgrading of the

waterway and the landing of the new energy ship are only the upgrading of the hardware level; the final decision of the freight rate and the reshaping of the market structure is always the supply of transport capacity, the demand for goods and the regional industrial structure.

However, we should also see the reality of the domestic market: the domestic industry has never lacked the resilience of competition. Even if there are many barriers in the short and medium term, as long as Hainan building materials market still has considerable profit margins, capital and production capacity will always try to find a way to cut in. However, this process will not be achieved overnight, and the market needs to be given enough time to evolve slowly. Looking at the long cycle, the high-profit market will eventually be gradually diluted by competition, and it is difficult for Hainan to break away from the general internal environment of the domestic industry for a long time, and the supply of goods in Guangxi will also explore various ways of landing and gradually penetrate. We can accurately judge the trend of Hainan market by focusing on two core data in the

follow-up:

first, the number of 5000-ton river and sea ships actually operating on the Pinglu Canal-Hainan route;

second, the real total freight volume from Beibu Gulf to Hainan.

These two sets of dynamic data are the < a href = "https://price.ccement.com/pricenewslist-1-630000-632500.".

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There has been a very optimistic voice circulating in the society: when the Pinglu Canal is open to navigation and the 5,000-6,000-ton river-sea intermodal new energy ship is put into operation, the water transport freight will be greatly reduced. The cement and aggregate from Guangxi can be directly transported to Hainan, and Qinzhou Port is no longer needed for transshipment; when the reconstruction of Pingtangkou Railway Bridge in Hengxian County is completed and the logistics cost of the left and right rivers is further optimized, the building materials from Guangxi will pour into Hainan on a large scale, and the original market pattern in the island will be completely rewritten.

2026-08-21 10:02:46

On the evening of August 26, Conch Cement disclosed its semi-annual report that in the first half of the year, the company realized operating income of 36.927 billion yuan, down 10.88% from the same period last year; the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 2.527 billion yuan, down 42.76% from the same period last year; the basic earnings per share was 0.48 yuan/share.