OCI bags two big polysilicon contracts, but expansion still unclear

South Korean polysilicon producer OCI has signed two sales contracts with Longi, the world’s largest maker of monocrystalline wafers, and JinkoSolar, the global No. 1 supplier of solar modules, respectively.

The contract with Longi is worth KRW1.113 trillion (USD1.023 billion), with delivery of 64,638 metric tons (MT) running over three years until 2021. The contract with Jinko has a value of KRW357.2 billion (USD328.1 million).

At the presentation of OCI’s fourth quarter results on February 6, CEO WooHyun Lee said that the company’s top four polysilicon customers would soon need 300,000 MT of polysilicon annually. If OCI wanted to supply one third of that volume, it would have to have an annual production capacity of 100,000 MT by the end of 2019, Lee explained. Currently, the company’s nameplate capacity is 65,800 MT (52,000 MT in Korea and 13,800 MT in Malaysia).

Apart from debottlenecking (+3,200 MT), however, OCI has not yet made a decision about the envisaged expansion by 20,000 to 25,000 MT in Malaysia. Obviously, the company is negotiating additional long-term contracts with prepayments before making a major investment.