The transportation construction field in Sichuan Province is ushering in a period of rapid development, which has also injected surging impetus into the basic building materials market such as sand and gravel aggregates. With the completion of 134.9 billion yuan of investment in highway and waterway construction in the province in the first half of 2025, a year-on-year increase of 3.5%, and the launch of the planning of four major "major project packages" with a total investment of up to 736 billion yuan, the huge demand for sand and gravel aggregates in Sichuan Province's transportation construction has been clearly revealed. Sichuan Province's "15th Five-Year Plan" highway and waterway investment target is directly aimed at one trillion yuan, and the scale of projects under construction alone has reached 280, with a total investment of more than 1.2 trillion yuan.
In the first half of 2025, Sichuan will start 24 new key transportation projects with a total investment of 102.9 billion yuan. Landmark projects such as Qiongluxing Expressway, Xichang-Ningnan Expressway, and Lexi Expressway Daliangshan No. 1 Tunnel have accelerated, and the demand for high-quality sand and gravel aggregates has shown rigid and continuous characteristics. In particular, control projects such as tunnels and large bridge pile foundations (such as the first pile of Qiongluxing Expressway) have strict requirements for aggregate strength, gradation, mud content and other indicators, driving the premium space of the high-quality aggregate market.
The strong support of policies and funds provides a solid backing for project construction and sand and gravel supply:
The Sichuan Provincial Government has issued special policies to support the construction of expressways and ordinary highways, improve the investment mechanism, and successfully attract 710 kilometers of expressway projects in the first half of the year, with a total investment of 139.7 billion yuan. The provincial financial arrangement is 13 billion yuan, and 8.3 billion yuan of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds and special bonds are in place. The innovative financing tool "Louis Loan" successfully issued 6.5 billion yuan. Attract about 80 billion yuan of social capital investment.
These measures ensure the sufficiency of project funds and indirectly stabilize the upstream sand and gravel aggregate procurement expectations and supply chain security.
In order to ensure the continuation of the project, Sichuan is accelerating the preliminary work of 13 expressway projects (with a total mileage of 1,572 kilometers) scheduled to start in 2026, with the goal of completing the pre-special report by the end of 2025 and determining the investor by May 2026. At the same time, the preliminary work of 41 highway projects with a total mileage of 2,790 kilometers has been planned. This kind of advanced planning clearly indicates that the sand and gravel aggregate market in Sichuan Province will maintain a high demand trend in the next 5-10 years.
Sichuan's 15th Five-Year Plan transportation investment plan is huge. From the perspective of project scale, promotion speed and financial guarantee, its demand for sand and gravel aggregates is a continuous super cycle. Sand and gravel enterprises with stable material sources, compliant production and scale advantages will usher in historic development opportunities. However, it is necessary to be wary of possible phased supply and demand imbalances and price fluctuations in local areas.
Behind the trillion-dollar investment, a storm is brewing to reshape the regional sand and gravel aggregate market pattern. In the future, whoever masters the resources and opportunities will win this "golden track" of basic building materials.