Sichuan sandstone, shale sand price in 2019

Approximately 190 million years ago, the edge of the Sichuan region gradually rose, forming a large ancient inland lake, the Bayu Lake, covering almost the entire Sichuan Province. With the evaporation and dive of the lake, a large amount of erosion and stripping materials piled up in the basin for several kilometers thick, forming red and purple-red sandstone, mudstone and shale, which determined the sandstone of sandstone and shale as the parent rock in Sichuan Province.

The development of sandstone mines in Sichuan Province has also been reserved at the policy level. According to the “Sichuan Provincial Mineral Resources Master Plan (2016-2020)” issued in November 2017, for gravel soil minerals, the planning blocks, concentration areas and candidate areas for sand and gravel mining should be demarcated. The mining scale is adapted to the scale of resource reserves in the mining area, saving intensive use of resources, and guiding the concentrated mining, scale mining and green mining of minerals such as sand and gravel for construction.

At present, the price of sandstone in Chengdu, a representative city in Sichuan Province, is stable at 120-150 yuan/ton. In fact, the ex-factory price of sand and gravel in the surrounding areas of Chengdu is not high. The real cost of pushing up the final price is the long-distance transportation cost. The price of sand and gravel is higher than the ex-factory price and the price is “upside-down”.

In order to ensure the supply of sand and gravel, and to suppress the high price of aggregates, the reform of the river sand mining management system in various parts of Sichuan was started, and a number of 200-400 tons/hour sand and gravel aggregate production lines were started;

It is estimated that Sichuan Province needs nearly 17 million cubic meters of river sand every year. However, the total output of river sand in the province is currently 10 million cubic meters. It has just started in the scale and environmental protection development of sand and gravel mines. How to ensure the smooth supply of sand and gravel, promote the standardized development of the industry, and moderately reduce the cost of sand and gravel logistics while controlling illegal mining is a problem that the competent authorities in Sichuan need to pay attention to.