Soda Ash Weekly: The market is stable and adjusted, and the wait-and-see atmosphere is strong (20250306 issue)

01 Industry News This Week

《Southern Alkali Industry won the title of "2024 Advanced Collective in Financial Work" of Guangzhou Industrial Control Group》

On February 21, 2025, at the 2024 Annual and Fourth Quarter Secondary Enterprise Financial Managers Meeting of Guangzhou Industrial Control Group, Southern Alkali Industry won the honorary title of "2024 Advanced Collective in Financial Work" for its outstanding financial management work. This honor is not only a high recognition of the financial work of Southern Alkali Industry in the past year, but also a strong spur for its future development.

In 2024, under the leadership of the group and the company, the financial team of Southern Alkali Industry closely focused on the business objectives of the enterprise, continuously optimized budget management, strengthened cost control, and provided precise financial support for the company's major projects. They always adhere to the working philosophy of "accurate, efficient and standardized", and have performed excellently in daily financial management, risk control, and capital operation, and won the recognition of the group.

In their work, the financial team of Southern Alkali Industry strictly abides by the financial systems and processes of the group and the company. With the support of the workshops of various departments, they submit various financial data, statements and analysis reports to the group on time, with quality and quantity, to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the financial data. In 2024, facing the three-month municipal party committee inspection, they actively cooperated with the group company to implement relevant work, overcame difficulties such as numerous materials, detailed content requirements, and tight time, worked overtime to complete the preparation of materials, and fully demonstrated a high sense of responsibility and professionalism. Looking forward to 2025, Southern Alkali Industry will adhere to the theme of "responsibility, innovation, transformation, and development". Under the leadership of the company's leaders and the joint efforts of all financial workers, it will continue to improve the level of financial management and inject new impetus into the company's high-quality development.

《Tangshan Sanyou Soda Ash Storage and Transportation Department: Focus on key links and take multiple measures to fight against difficulties》

Organize a special spring inspection, focusing on the railway lines, turnouts, signals, communication equipment, etc. during the spring melting period. Comprehensive inspection and rectification to ensure smooth railway operation. Use handover meetings, regular production meetings, etc. to organize all employees to learn about typical social accident cases, locomotive transportation safety standards, and warehousing and shipping safety knowledge, and continuously improve employees' safety awareness and emergency response capabilities. Carry out the "Go to the Grassroots and Encourage Safety" on-site safety knowledge question-and-answer activity. The safety officer asks questions to the on-site workers every day according to the arrangement and deployment of the maintenance work of each section, guides the employees to strengthen their safety awareness, strictly abide by safety regulations, and build a solid safety line.

Optimize the product loading process, and change the large bag loading method of calcium chloride products from external hoisting to employee self-hoisting in combination with the finished product workshop, which not only improves the loading efficiency, but also reduces the transportation cost by 13,000 yuan. Actively coordinate with the railway department to create 195,200 yuan of benefits through locomotive leasing. Cooperate with the sales department, take the initiative to communicate and negotiate with customers, and reasonably use the covering materials while meeting the transportation requirements, saving 54,000 yuan in material consumption costs, and implementing cost reduction and efficiency improvement to every detail. In order to ensure product quality and meet customer needs, the department has established a full-process quality assurance system in key links such as acceptance, product maintenance, loading and unloading management, and shipping review to ensure that the goods picked up by customers are intact and accurate, and provide excellent customer service.

Faced with the severe market situation, all staff of the department insist on the idea of ​​"living a tight life". Organize and carry out the "water saving, electricity saving, paper saving" activities. Each section makes full use of the pre-shift and post-shift meetings to guide the majority of employees to firmly establish the concept of "all costs can be reduced". The employees have exerted their intelligence and wisdom, insisted on not outsourcing what they can repair by themselves, and independently completed the tasks of repairing the threshold of the anti-theft door of the calcium chloride product grain warehouse and self-repairing the water supply pipeline, saving a total of 3,200 yuan in outsourced repair costs. The department started from the little things, cleverly used the scrap iron plates, and made 19 train carriage pads by itself, effectively saving 1,400 yuan in fuel costs for locomotive hook adjustment, and implementing cost reduction and efficiency improvement in little things.

02 Soda ash market analysis
2.1. Soda ash market analysis
This week, the domestic soda ash market price rose briefly and then stabilized, and the market shipment situation improved. As of Thursday this week, the mainstream price of light soda ash remained at 1,400-1,700 yuan/ton, and the price of heavy soda ash was 1,500-1,800 yuan/ton. Entering March, some soda ash enterprises began maintenance, and the start-up and output declined. The overall spot supply was stable, and the downstream alkali consumption was purchased on demand. The actual transaction performance was mild, and the ex-factory price of the alkali plant increased month-on-month. Overall, the supply of soda ash in the mainstream market was stable on demand, and the purchasing atmosphere improved at the beginning of the week. Supported by orders, the market's focus on goods increased; the soda ash market in other regions followed the trend, and the factory shipments were still good, and the inventory decreased; in the second half of the week, downstream flat glass and other industries were more resistant to the new price of soda ash, and replenished the inventory at a low price, and the purchase became rational; the market was in a wait-and-see atmosphere, and the overall trading atmosphere stabilized.

In terms of futures, the price of soda ash futures fell sharply from its highs during the week. On the one hand, the macro sentiment is based on the basic market expectations after the initial implementation of the two sessions policies, and the funds leave the market according to the expected realization. On the other hand, the price of soda ash itself has been close to the profit and loss line of high-cost enterprises after rising to around 1,600 yuan. Under the premise of high absolute inventory in the middle and upper reaches, the hedging pressure on the market has increased, and the downstream's ability to undertake high-priced raw materials is also weakening, and the demand side is insufficient to drive soda ash in the short term. Overall, the subsequent supply disturbance problem and the expectation of demand scale repair still exist, and the valuation support for soda ash prices still exists. The main focus is on waiting and watching the actual supply and demand gap changes in the future.

Forecast for the future market:
1. There will be spring maintenance plans for individual devices in the future, which will affect the market supply;
2. Downstream demand is general, mainly on demand, and low prices have boosted recent transactions;
3. It is expected that the soda ash market trend will be stable and adjusted.

2.2. Comparison of soda ash market prices

03 Statistics of soda ash process profit this week
3.1. Soda ash process profit situation
As of March 6 this week, the profit of the soda ash process was 193.50 yuan/ton, an increase of 176.40 yuan/ton from last week; the profit of the ammonia soda process was -51.50 yuan/ton, an increase of 51.65 yuan/ton from last week. The cost-end price fluctuated downward during the week, while the center of gravity of the soda ash price moved upward, and the profit recovery was obvious.

3.2. Soda ash production profit trend

04 This week's soda ash enterprise equipment maintenance and start-up situation
4.1. List of soda ash enterprise equipment situation

4.2. Statistics of soda ash enterprise operation rate during the week
This week, the soda ash industry started about 83.45%, a decrease of 6.25% from last week. According to incomplete statistics, the output of soda ash manufacturers this week was about 697,500 tons, a decrease of 5.08% from last week.

05 Statistics of soda ash inventory this week
This week, the total inventory of domestic soda ash manufacturers was 1.7595 million tons, and last week it was about 1.8155 million tons, a decrease of 56,000 tons from the previous month, a decrease of -3.08%.

06 Analysis of upstream and downstream products of soda ash

6.1. Comparison of spot prices of raw salt this week
This week, the domestic raw salt market is still in a downward trend. As of Thursday this week, the mainstream ex-factory price of domestic sea salt remained at 270-390 yuan/ton, the mainstream ex-factory price of well salt was 270-380 yuan/ton, and the mainstream ex-factory price of lake salt was 230-250 yuan/ton. Affected by insufficient downstream demand during the week, the price of mineral salt generally dropped, the trading atmosphere gradually weakened, and the shipment performance of other raw salt manufacturers was general. The market price remained stable in the short term. The sea salt spring is expected to increase production, and the market supply will be further improved. In the short term, the raw salt market will remain sluggish, and the price fluctuation space is limited.

6.2. Analysis of float glass market this week
This week, the domestic 5mm float glass market continued its downward trend as a whole, and prices in various regions generally fell. Specifically, the price in the East China market dropped by 40 yuan/ton to 1,390 yuan/ton, the overall inventory continued to rise, and the orders from processing plants were still weak; the price in North China dropped by 30 yuan/ton to 1,240 yuan/ton, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan market dropped by 30 yuan/ton to 1,260 yuan/ton, and the market atmosphere was bearish; the price of 5mm large and small plates in Shahe area fell by 28 yuan/ton, and the pressure on enterprises to ship goods remained, and inventory continued to accumulate; the glass quotations in other markets were all lowered, the market transaction was still weak, and the demand recovery was slow.

In general, the float glass market had production lines producing glass this week, and the supply side maintained high levels. Downstream purchases were cautious, with a strong wait-and-see mood, and terminal demand did not pick up significantly. Enterprise inventories in some regions were under pressure, and manufacturers were struggling between stable prices and flexible quotations. Affected by the mentality of buying high and not buying low, the float glass market is expected to maintain a weak trend in the short term, with prices likely to fluctuate slightly, and market confidence still needs to be boosted.