Ⅰ. Status and characteristics
In 2019, The building materials industry sales revenue of Hu'nan Province was 290 billion yuan, ranking 6th among 13 industrial sectors; profits and taxes were 28 billion yuan, ranking 3rd to 4th; cement output was 115 million tons, clinker 68.74 million tons, and commodity concrete 110 million cubic meters. Cement and concrete sales revenue was about 98 billion yuan, and the cement industry's profits and taxes were 16 billion yuan, accounting for 57% of the building materials industry.

The province's 63 dry-process clinker production lines have a designed capacity of 73.5 million tons, and the actual production capacity is about 83 million tons. The industry concentration is 91%. There are 29 production lines with a daily output of 5,000 tons and above, accounting for 61% of the total production capacity; 13 with a daily output of 3,000 tons and 21 with a daily output of 2,500 tons and below, accounting for 18% and 21% of the total production capacity respectively. The cement industry is under severe pressure to reduce emissions. Its CO2 and dust each account for about 9% of the total domestic emissions, and NOx, SO2, and Hg are also the three major emission sources.

There are nearly 800 concrete mixing plants in the province, the capacity utilization rate is about 30%, the accounts receivable are large, and the operation is relatively difficult. Commodity concrete is a process product, performance testing is lagging or difficult to trace, and project quality issues are frequently disputed. The energy consumption of concrete production is not high, but the resource consumption is large. The output of cement ,sand and stone in our country accounts for about 55% of the world, and the total consumption is difficult to sustain.

Ⅱ.Prospects on Cement and Concrete Industry
1.Where is the cement used?
Taking Hu'nan province as an example, if each cubic meter of concrete uses 42.5 cement at 0.27 tons, 110 million cubic meters of concrete consumes only 29 million tons of cement. The province's annual output is about 5.5 million tons of mortar, plus the underreported ready-mixed concrete and unstated precast concrete product, the using cement is about 16 million tons, totaling less than 45 million tons. Compared with the province's total output, the question of where about 70 million tons of cement (60%) is used is worthy of further discussion! It is of practical significance to the cement industry in the plateau period. But at least it shows that the proportion of cement used in mixing concrete and mortar on site is still relatively high.

2.When will cement demand enter the inflection point?
The developed countries in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea have almost the same pattern. The plateau period is seven or eight years, and the current output of cement is about half of the peak period. The total demand for cement in our country has reached its peak. The plateau period has been seven years since 2014. Is the good day coming to an end? The author predicts that in a year or so, total demand will drop significantly. If the annual demand of Hu'nan Province drops by 10 to 20 million tons, the difficulty of coordination will be greatly increased.

3.Cement industry response
During the plateau period, we will rely on staggered peak production and seize the opportunity to carry out green, low-carbon emission reduction smart technology transformation, transformation and upgrading. In the long-term analysis, the competitiveness and survival of an enterprise depends on firstly cost; secondly, technical conditions for emission reduction and solid waste utilization; thirdly, changing quality concepts and adjusting product structure, developing low-heat and anti-cracking, commodity concrete, rural housing and mortar cement. With the implementation of the group standard and leader standard as the entry point to expand the differentiated product market.

4.The total market space of commodity concrete and motar in the future is large.
Cement can only be used for concrete. 115 million tons of cement can be used to prepare 380 million cubic meters of concrete. If half of the cement is used for commodity concrete, there are nearly 190 million cubic meters of concrete. Therefore, the commodity concrete and mortar market has a large space, but this does not refer to the capacity space, and the commodity concrete production capacity is severely surplus.

5.Concrete transformation and upgrading and high-quality development direction
The first is to innovate business models, change settlement methods, and implement an agency system, which requires the support of some departments such as Ministry of housing and Urban-Rural Development . The second is to vigorously enhance the quality and brand credit, accelerate the promotion of a traceable quality management system; implement the group standard and enterprise standard, and make the product direction high-performance and differentiated. The third is to adapt to the development trend of building industrialization and green development, and integrate development with the cement industry and the prefabricated construction industry.

Ⅲ.Outlook for the Sand and Stone Industry
At present, sand and gravel enterprises are small in scale, low in concentration, and high in transportation costs. The quality problems of machine-made sand and gravel and the abuse of inferior sand and gravel are more serious, making it difficult to control the quality of concrete projects. Our province was the first to launch the "Hu'nan Province Sand and Stone Aggregate Industry Standard Conditions" and made the "Hu'nan Province Special Remediation Action Plan on Sand and Gravel Mines for Building Materials" and "Hu'nan Province Green Mine Standards for the Sand and Stone Industry" and so on. The "Quality Management Regulations for Sand and Stone Production Enterprises" are being prepared.

There is a high correlation between cement and the consumption of sand and gravel , which is about 1:8.  At present, the annual output and sales volume of sand and gravel in the province is about 900 million tons, and the total demand has reached its peak. It is predicted that the demand for sand and gravel will drop significantly in about a year. In recent years, the high price of sand and gravel has led to a large influx of capital. It is predicted that the production capacity of machine-made gravel will be severely surplus in two years, and the price will drop sharply. Due to the large impact of transportation distance and financial expenses on operations, the prospects of those enterprises which rely on loans to invest in large mines or restructure and acquire enterprises are worrying, and it is difficult to duplicate the effects of the previous consolidation of the cement industry. High-quality machine-made sand and recycled aggregates are the development direction, and recycled aggregates will continue to grow in the future.

Ⅳ.Thinking about some problems
1.Our country will usher in an era of comprehensive carbon constraints
(a)New asset-carbon asset

With six years of domestic carbon trading pilots and the acceleration of the national unified carbon market, China will usher in an era of comprehensive carbon constraints. The greenhouse gas emission right represented by carbon dioxide has become a scarce commodity with financial value, and has gradually become a new type of asset-carbon asset after cash assets, physical assets and intangible assets. Regulations related to carbon emission trading management have been basically completed, and the cement industry should prepare for carbon emission reporting, verification and quota management.

(b)Severe situation and carbon asset management
In order to ensure that the earth's temperature does not rise by 2 degrees in 2050 (1990 as the base), CO2  emissions are required to drop to 10.4 billion tons by 2050, otherwise an irreversible climate and ecological disaster will occur. Global CO2 emissions in 2018 were about 36 billion tons, and Europe promised to drop to 1.2 billion tons by 2050. Our country accounts for 8% of the global economy, but consumes 20% of the world's energy, consumes 3.8 billion tons of coal, accounting for 32% of the world, and our country's CO2 emissions account for about 27% of the world. The cement industry is a major carbon emitter and must attach great importance to carbon asset management. CDM has been in operation for many years. Low-carbon emission reduction cannot only rely on administrative means, but must be promoted through market mechanisms and financial means. Environmental protection tax has also been levied. The operating entities of pollutants, solid waste, and noise should declare and pay taxes on time.

2.Standardization technology policy and standard development direction
(a)The new "Standardization Law" and relevant document regulations
The State Council's "Deepening Standardization Work Reform Plan" pointed out that the level of consistency between international and domestic standards has been significantly improved, and the level of consistency with international standards is up to more than 95%. The government actively cultivates group standards and encourages the use of group standards. Formulate a number of group standards that are compatible with the implementation of mandatory standards to solve problems such as lack of standards, lagging aging, and overlapping contradictions. Develop a self-declaration and supervision system for enterprise product and service standards. By 2025, group standards will be widely accepted by the market. The new "Standardization Law" has given the legal status of group standards, and it has been clarified that standards have no hierarchy. Support integrating patents into group standards and promote technological progress. The state encourages societies, associations, and industrial technology alliances to formulate group standards that meet market and innovation needs.

(b)Ministry of Industry and Information Technology "Implementation Opinions on Cultivating and Developing Industrial Communication Industry Group Standards"
The establishment of a new standard system is accelerated, the standardization work mechanism of industrial groups is basically sound, and the market recognition of group standards has been greatly improved. Strengthen the coordination of group standards, industry standards, and national standards.

(c)Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development "Opinions on Cultivating and Developing Engineering Construction Group Standards"
In principle, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development no longer organizes the formulation of recommended standards. Comprehensively clean up the current standards and transform the recommended standards into group standards.

3.Development direction of cement quality and improvement of adaptability
(a)Cement and concrete disputes and project quality problems are highlighted
Cement is a semi-finished product, and concrete is a finished product. Due to historical and institutional reasons, cement production and use belong to two industries, and there is a serious isolation phenomenon. In addition, it is difficult to determine who is responsible for project quality problems, which has led to increasingly prominent contradictions about disputes and project quality problems between the two parties.

(b)The outstanding problems of concrete and its influencing factors
At present, the problems of poor durability caused by the early cracking and strength shrinkage of domestic concrete are very common, causing huge economic losses. One of the main reasons is precisely related to the use of ordinary cement and other early-strength and high-strength cements, and it is also the main factor that causes more and more serious concrete engineering quality problems and disputes. C30/35 concrete has a clinker coefficient of less than 0.5 in its cementitious material.

(c)Confusion in cement production and application
Professor Lian Huizhen of Tsinghua University strongly advocated that the admixture should be added by the cement plant, which is more conducive to the quality of the project. At present, it has many drawbacks to add admixture by the mixing plant, and it is difficult to mix evenly by the current technology; some insiders believe that cement plants only produce pure Portland cement, so that the mixing plant can adjust the concrete performance freely. This still can not solve the fatal problem-uneven mixing, and it is difficult to adjust the admixture and gypsum content in time according to the cement quality and its changes. The author analyzed and summarized the above problems in "Concrete" (2015.05) and other articles.

As we all know, M32.5 relaxes the composition and content requirements of 32.5 general-purpose cement, and its performance index is much lower than that of PC32.5R. It can only be used for masonry, etc., not for structural concrete. If a single admixture is used to produce and sell 32.5 cement, but in the actual production , two or more admixtures are added, it is a substandard product and illegal production. In the event of quality disputes with users, all responsibilities and legal risks must be assumed. The actual situation in the past year has proved that some companies have chosen M32.5 as an alternative, which has caused a lot of disputes and legal risks.

(d)Cement quality development direction
Improving product adaptability, implementing differentiated strategies, multi-components, reducing the amount of clinker, and replacing part of the clinker with mixed materials are the development trend of the cement concrete industry and an inevitable choice. From the pursuit of ordinary cement, early-strength and high-strength cement and clinker (high C3S, C3A, fineness, etc.), to "higher C2S, moderate C3S, low C3A clinker" and its cement, we try our best to meet the requirements of low water-cementious ratio,high strength at long age and low heat of hydration, so that they are conducive to the preparation of high-performance concrete and the improvement of concrete durability. Take the implementation of the group standard and the leader’s enterprise standard as an important measure to improve product applicability and user satisfaction, and expand market share.

4.It is one of the development trends to optimize the composite of cement and concrete admixtures and directly mix them in cement preparation
(a)Common cement standards in Europe and America allow the mixing of process aids and functional additives
The American general cement standards ASTMC150 "Portland Cement", ASTMC595 "Mixed Cement" and ASTMC1157 "Cement Performance Specification" all allow the use of functional additives. The specifications are given by C688. The varieties include 6 kinds of agents such as water reducer, hardening accelerator, retarder and air-entraining agent, etc. And allow the use of process aids, the specifications are given by C465.

European EN197-1 "General Portland Cement" allows the mixing of additives, except for pigments, the mixing amount is within 1.0% (including grinding aids). Additives cannot cause corrosion of the concrete skeleton or damage to the concrete performance. EN934-2 allows the additives used in cement manufacturing to be the same as concrete additives. There are 11 kinds of additives, and the additive standard number should be indicated on the package or bill of lading.

(b)European and American cement standards related to strength indicators and grade regulations

EN197-1 has three grades: 32.5, 42.5, and 52.5. It is stipulated that there are 28 varieties with >5% mixed materials, and CEMII and CEMVI composite cements are installed. The American standard ASTMC1157 does not have any requirements or restrictions on cement components, chemical indicators, mineral composition and fineness, and only specifies the physical properties required by traditional standards. ASTMC1157 divides general-purpose cement into six types, such as GU (ordinary) and HE (early strength) and so on. Only the GU, HS, and LH types have specified 28-day strength indicators, which are only 28MPa, 25MPa and 21MPa, respectively. The other three types only specify 1 or 3, 7-day strength, and no 28-day strength requirements are specified, and a water-cementious ratio of 0.5 is used.

5.About project approval and preliminary work
(a)Project approval basis
The main basis for project verification and filing: the State Council's "Government Approved Investment Catalogue", "Enterprise Investment Project Approval and Filing Management Regulations", "Market Access Negative List", National Development and Reform Commission "Industrial Structure Adjustment Guidance Catalog", Ministry of Industry and Information Technology "Industry Development and Transfer table of Contents". Without the authorization of the State Council, all regions and departments are not allowed to publish negative lists of market access nature. All areas outside the negative lists of market access can be entered equally in accordance with the law.

(b)Interpretation of relevant industrial policies and project approval
Those that do not fall into the three categories of encouraged, restricted, and eliminated categories, and comply with relevant national laws and regulations, are allowed. Permitted categories are not included in the catalog, and nothing is prohibited by law. Industrial policies should be based on energy consumption, environmental protection, quality, and safety. The verification and filing of the project mainly review its "externality" conditions , such as development planning, industrial (technical) access, land use, environmental protection, credit policies, etc. The pre-examination opinions on land use and other procedures required by laws and regulations are preconditions for project approval. Cement is filed, but the pre-conditions is to announce the capacity replacement plan. The environmental protection department implements hierarchical and classified management according to the impact of the project on the environment.

None of the building materials projects are listed in the "Government Approved Investment Catalog", that is, they are managed by filing and handled in accordance with the territorial principle. The project application report can be prepared by the project enterprise itself (that is, the past feasibility study report, for general text requirements, please refer to the Fagai Investment [2017] No. 684), or it can be compiled by an engineering consulting company. No unit shall force the project enterprise to entrust the service organization to prepare. The internal conditions of the project, such as market prospects, funding sources, and technical solutions, should be made by the enterprise independently, and the project approval authority must not interfere with the enterprise's investment autonomy.

6."14th Five-Year Plan" Development Ideas for Building Materials Industry

The first is to accelerate the development of new inorganic non-metal materials and the industrial chains with advantages and characteristics. For example, our province has identified 20 advantageous and characteristic industrial chains, and issued a series of policy measures to provide key support. Each industrial chain has a provincial leadership contact (Chief of Industry Chain) system, and a three-year action plan will be released soon. There are four industrial chains closely related to building materials, namely advanced ceramic materials, carbon-based materials, display materials, and prefabricated buildings. The second is to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries to green and smart, develop and promote technologies such as low heat and crack resistance, low carbon cement and emission reduction, co-processing of solid waste, and alternative clinker etc.