Market sources indicate that multiple production lines in China's glass industry underwent shutdowns and maintenance in November. At the beginning of the month, four production lines in the Shahe region halted operations to advance the “coal-to-gas” conversion project. By month-end, several lines in Hubei also entered cold repair phases, collectively reducing daily melting capacity by 6,050 tons—equivalent to approximately 121,000 standard containers. However, the market reacted mildly. Following the announcement of Shihe's production line maintenance, futures prices declined rather than rose. Despite the unexpected shutdown of four additional lines in Hubei at month-end, glass prices rebounded only briefly for less than a week before falling again.
Overall, November's cold repairs failed to provide strong support for glass prices. On one hand, market expectations for some maintenance had already been priced in. Notably, the construction of clean coal gasification lines supporting the Shahe region is largely complete, with an expected annual capacity increase of approximately 3,000 tons/day, weakening expectations for supply contraction. On the other hand, overall industry inventories remain high, with local Shahe enterprises facing significant sales pressure. This has led to widespread discounting and promotional strategies in the spot market, further suppressing price stabilization and recovery.
As of December 4, the national float glass daily melting volume stood at 155,000 tons, with weekly output reaching 1,085,100 tons—a decrease of 18,800 tons (3.64%) from the previous week. The comprehensive capacity utilization rate also declined to approximately 73.6%. Nationwide float glass factory inventory stood at 59.442 million weight boxes, down 2.92 million weight boxes (5.85%) week-on-week. In the Shahe region, factory inventory was 3.6488 million weight boxes, down 597,600 weight boxes week-on-week.
In the short term, production halts and maintenance have somewhat alleviated supply excess. However, mid-to-downstream buyers continue to procure primarily on-demand. Some enterprises with high inventory levels are adopting price-cutting promotions to accelerate shipments, maintaining downward pressure on overall prices. Market prices in North China have approached the 1,000 RMB /ton threshold. Regarding profitability, coal-to-gas production lines currently yield approximately RMB 6.5 per ton, while petroleum coke lines generate about RMB21.4 per ton—both at relatively low levels. Despite this, maintaining production helps enterprises stabilize cash flow. Considering the time costs and capital investment required for cold repairs, most companies remain reluctant to proactively schedule maintenance.
From a real estate cycle perspective, glass continues to lack sustained upward demand growth. Data shows that from January to October, national real estate development investment totaled RMB 7.3563 trillion, down 14.7% year-on-year, with residential investment at RMB 5.6595 trillion , down 13.8% year-on-year. Currently, the real estate sector shows no signs of bottoming out and instead appears to be accelerating its contraction.
Order volumes for deep processing enterprises remain low, and overall operating rates at processing plants are not high, aligning with actual demand in the end market. Currently, the average order backlog for enterprises stands at just 10.1 days, down 2.2 days from the same period last year. The order structure is dominated by short-term contracts, lacking long-term stable inventory replenishment demand. As most deep-processing enterprises are closely tied to the real estate sector, facing long payment cycles and significant cash flow pressures, they are proactively controlling order volumes to alleviate operational burdens.
Glass remains undervalued at present. With production lines undergoing cold repairs and overall industry capacity utilization declining, the market is nearing supply-demand equilibrium, and inventory is gradually being absorbed. However, from the real estate sector perspective, the industry still faces downward pressure due to inertia. Even with policy support, it is difficult to reverse the negative growth trend. Even if future policies stimulate a recovery in the real estate market, the prolonged lead time from project commencement to glass procurement means that weak glass demand is expected to persist in the short term.
Currently, if downstream negative feedback and rising costs squeeze out some outdated production capacity, while anti-cannibalization and environmental policies drive upgrades in coal-to-gas production lines, a supply gap may emerge in the short term. In the absence of unexpected changes, a bearish outlook on the glass market remains advisable.
As an integrated internet platform providing benchmark prices, on December 8, the benchmark price of glass on SunSirs was 13.78RMB/square meter, an increase of 0.73% compared with the beginning of the month (13.68 RMB /square meter).
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