News on plant

News on suppliers, market trends and technology innovations in polysilicon and wafer production is selected, assessed and written for you by Bernreuter Research.

Polysilicon plant of OCI in Bintulu, a coastal city in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia

OCI firms up 42,500-ton polysilicon capacity expansion by 2027

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South Korean chemicals group OCI will implement its plan to increase production capacities for both solar-grade and electronic-grade polysilicon later than originally envisaged.

Curves of the global polysilicon price average from January 2022 through the first week of January 2023 (dark blue) and from January 2021 through the first week of January 2022 (pink)

Polysilicon price slump accelerates, but will not last very long

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Since the last week of December 2022, the slump of the polysilicon price has accelerated drastically; however, there are good arguments that the price collapse will soon come to a halt.

Fire at polysilicon plant of East Hope in Xinjiang on June 17, 2022

Fire halts polysilicon production at East Hope for one month

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A fire that broke out at Chinese polysilicon manufacturer East Hope in Xinjiang on June 17 is expected to halt production for about one month. The fire was caused by the leakage of a superheater.

Arabinda Ghosh (left), designated Chairman and CEO of Hemlock Semiconductor, and Ken Collins, site leader of Wacker Chemical Corporation’s polysilicon and pyrogenic silica plants in Charleston, Tennessee

New leadership at U.S. polysilicon makers Wacker and Hemlock

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Ken Collins is new site leader of Wacker’s polysilicon plant in Charleston, Tennessee while Arabinda Ghosh will follow Mark Bassett as CEO of competitor Hemlock Semiconductor at year’s end.

Chairman Mukesh Ambani at the annual general meeting of Reliance Industries Limited on June 24, 2021

Will India’s plans for polysilicon production get real this time?

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Reliance, Adani and two other bidders are each proposing a 4 GW solar factory that is fully integrated from polysilicon production through wafer, solar cell and module manufacturing in India.

Polysilicon plant of OCI in Bintulu, a coastal city in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia

OCI mulling expansion of polysilicon capacity by 60,000 tons

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South Korean chemicals group OCI is considering expanding the capacity of its polysilicon plant in Malaysia to 95,000 tons, possibly fueled by demand for polysilicon untainted by forced labor in Xinjiang.

Representatives of East Hope Group and the Ningxia and Shizuishan governments signed cooperation and invest agreements for a cluster of projects in Shizuishan

Is Xinjiang becoming a hot potato for polysilicon producers?

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Out of four Xinjiang-based polysilicon manufacturers, East Hope is the third that has announced a new project outside the region linked to forced labor: a 250,000-ton factory in Shizuishan, Ningxia.

Polysilicon plant of Inner Mongolia Tongwei in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China

Tongwei and Xinte to upgrade polysilicon production capacities

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Leading Chinese polysilicon manufacturers Tongwei and Xinte Energy are boosting the capacity of their production facilities through upgrades and debottlenecking by 50,000 metric tons in total.

Groundbreaking ceremony for a 100,000-ton fluidized bed reactor (FBR) plant of GCL-Poly in Leshan, Sichuan province, China on October 18, 2020

Opinion: Chinese polysilicon makers are posing their muscles

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China-based polysilicon manufacturers outdo each other with ever bigger capacity announcements. What appears like a bodybuilder competition has a serious background: accelerating PV growth.

Fluidized bed reactor (FBR) polysilicon plant of TianREC, the Chinese joint venture of REC Silicon, in Yulin, Shaanxi province, China

REC Silicon writes down China joint-venture investment to zero

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Low utilization rates and continuing losses of its granular polysilicon joint venture TianREC in Yulin in the Chinese province of Shaanxi have led REC Silicon to write down its investment to zero.