Wacker Chemie, the world’s second-largest supplier of PV-grade polysilicon by
most measures, will place as many as 700 workers on short-time until next
spring as it waits for its wafer customers to rekindle production.
The short-timing will occur at Wacker’s principal chemicals plant in
Burghausen, in the German state of Bavaria, according to reports.
The immense polysilicon upgrade Wacker opened
earlier this year at Nünchritz will apparently be unaffected, and
construction continues apace at its facility in Tennessee, US, which is
slated for completion in late 2013.
Despite the precipitous decline in polysilicon prices over the past four years
– the chief driver of falling PV prices – most of the world’s leading
producers remain profitable, given their capacity and technology leads over
smaller, newer rivals, many of them in China.
Wacker
is considered one of the “big four” polysilicon producers, alongside OCI,
Hemlock and GCL-Poly
– with Norway’s REC not far behind.
Despite seeing revenues at its polysilicon unit slide 28% in the second
quarter to €286.8m ($370m), Wacker’s polysilicon business remains
profitable.
The spot price of PV-grade polysilicon has fallen from nearly $500/kg in 2008
to nearly $19/kg today – its lowest level in more than a decade.
Ironically, the fall has prevented many recent Chinese entrants from gaining
traction, as they largely failed to scale-up production in time for the
price crash.
LDK Solar is producing polysilicon at roughly double the spot price, and has acknowledged
that a long-touted floatation of its polysilicon unit may be permanently
spiked if an ongoing technology upgrade does not catapult it into a position
competitive with the big four.
Most analysts believe polysilicon prices will continue to ease downward until
mid-2013 and then bottom out at around $18/kg, by which time the
supply-demand dynamics of the global PV industry are expected to be in a
healthier alignment.
Published: Monday, October 15 2012
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