The silicon material link is showing signs of replicating the hot investment in silicon wafer links in the past two years.
Recently, the “dark horse” Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) ( Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) . SH), which has stirred the silicon wafer Market in the past two years, invested 11.8 billion yuan to expand its investment in silicon materials.
On February 25, Baofeng group, the Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co.Ltd(600989) parent company, signed a polysilicon investment agreement with Jiuquan, Ningxia, with a planned investment of 20 billion yuan in phase I.
According to the statistics of the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, since 2021, 16 companies have announced actions in the polysilicon sector, involving a production capacity of 2.65 million tons and a total investment of more than 250 billion yuan
21st Century Business Herald reporter noted that in the past two years, China’s photovoltaic industry has ushered in another round of investment boom. According to statistics, in 2021, the total investment in China’s photovoltaic manufacturing sector exceeded 720 billion yuan, with huge investments in silicon materials, silicon wafers, battery modules and other sectors.
However, unlike the expansion of silicon wafers, battery modules and other fields, polysilicon is a capital and technology intensive industry with high industrial barriers. “As the upstream of the photovoltaic industry chain, polysilicon has ushered in a profit explosion in the past two years.” A brokerage analyst told the 21st Century Business Herald that compared with the whole industrial chain, polysilicon’s profit is in a dominant position, so it is expected to attract a large amount of investment. However, due to the characteristics of high technical threshold, long investment cycle, difficult production and large capital investment of polysilicon project, it is difficult to change the competition pattern of the industry in the short term.
However, it is worth noting that warning sounds also appeared. “Polysilicon high profit is temporary.” Ma Haitian, Deputy Secretary General of the silicon branch of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said it was necessary to guard against overheating of polysilicon investment
dragon head and “dark horse”
Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) spend 10 billion to accelerate its investment in the field of polysilicon materials. Two years ago, after the “dark horse” made a big fuss in the silicon chip link, it now extends its tentacles further upstream.
According to the announcement, Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) plans to invest in the production of 150000 tons of high-purity industrial silicon and 100000 tons of high-purity crystalline silicon in Guyang County, Baotou City, Inner Mongolia, with a total investment of 11.8 billion yuan. It is reported that the whole project is divided into two phases. The first phase is designed to have a capacity of 80000 tons of high-purity industrial silicon and 50000 tons of high-purity crystalline silicon, with a total investment of 6 billion yuan. The second phase of the project will be promoted according to the market conditions, and the investment progress is expected to reach the production capacity in 2023.
“This investment will help the company obtain new channels for stable supply of silicon materials and ensure the supply of raw materials.” From the statement of Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) , it is not difficult to see that its main purpose of investing in polysilicon is to break through the bottleneck of raw material supply in recent years.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first signal for Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) to enter the polysilicon sector. As early as the first quarter of 2021, the cooperation between the company and poly GCL energy once triggered heated discussion in the industry.
In April last year, Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) and Jiangsu Zhongneng, a subsidiary of poly GCL energy, jointly established Inner Mongolia Xinyuan with a shareholding of 35%. The joint venture will carry out the project construction with an annual output of 100000 tons of granular silicon and 150000 tons of high-purity nano silicon. Subsequently, the joint venture made two capital increases, and the shareholding ratio of Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) decreased.
Equity cooperation with leading silicon enterprises is one of the common ways of cooperation between downstream manufacturers and upstream binding supply.
For example, Longi Green Energy Technology Co.Ltd(601012) and Jingke energy successively participated in the polycrystalline silicon project of Tongwei Co.Ltd(600438) – in September 2020, Longi Green Energy Technology Co.Ltd(601012) announced to participate in the holding subsidiaries of Tongwei Co.Ltd(600438) Sichuan Yongxiang new energy and Yunnan Tongwei high-purity crystalline silicon, of which the latter is the main body of Tongwei Co.Ltd(600438) Baoshan 40000 ton high-purity crystalline silicon project; In February 2021, Jingke energy and Tongwei Co.Ltd(600438) signed a strategic cooperation agreement. One of the cooperation contents is that Jingke energy strategically shares Tongwei Co.Ltd(600438) 45000 tons of high-purity crystalline silicon project company at the proportion of 35% equity.
This form of cooperation also appeared between Ja Solar Technology Co.Ltd(002459) and new special energy. In June 2021, Xinte energy, Jingke energy and Ja Solar Technology Co.Ltd(002459) signed the agreement on investment and construction of 100000 tons per year high purity polysilicon green energy circular economy project and capital and share increase of Inner Mongolia Xinte silicon materials Co., Ltd. Among them, Jingke energy and Ja Solar Technology Co.Ltd(002459) each increased capital by 315 million yuan, holding 9% equity of Inner Mongolia silicon materials company respectively.
In fact, for most downstream enterprises, the deep binding of equity cooperation with upstream enterprises is not to expand the polysilicon material business as an independent business. But Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) is an exception.
From diamond wire equipment manufacturers to silicon chip upstarts, Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) once became a hot new entrant. This investment in high-purity industrial silicon and high-purity crystalline silicon projects in Baotou means that Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) has its own capacity in the silicon material link.
the upward layout of the silicon field also means that Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) , which previously relied on a single silicon wafer business in the photovoltaic industry, will have more “one leg” to walk in the future
expansion and overheating
Wuxi Shangji Automation Co.Ltd(603185) 10 billion investment in polysilicon is only the epitome of the frequent emergence of large investment in polysilicon tracks in recent two years.
According to the incomplete statistics of the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, since February 2021, the polysilicon field has been surrounded by investment from 16 new and old faces, involving a total planned production capacity of 2.65 million tons and a total investment of 258999 billion yuan.
Among them, poly GCL energy has an annual output of 300000 tons of granular silicon, Dongfang hopes to have an annual output of 250000 tons of polycrystalline silicon, Qinghai Lihao, Tongwei Co.Ltd(600438) , Xinyi Glass, Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Co.Ltd(688303) and Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Co.Ltd(688303) each have an annual output of 200000 tons of polycrystalline silicon. The project investment has reached the level of 10 billion.
The latest fire maker is Baofeng group. On February 25th this year, the upstream and downstream investment cooperation agreement was signed with Jiuquan group. It is planned to build 350000 GW / year wind power plant, photovoltaic power generation unit and polysilicon power generation unit with a capacity of 300000 GW / year. Among them, the first phase of the project plans to invest 20 billion yuan to build 50000 T / a polycrystalline silicon, 2.5gw/a crystal pulling, 2.5gw/a slicing, 2.5gw/a battery and 2.5gw/a photovoltaic module production devices in the modern high load energy industrial park of North Bridge in Guazhou County, and build 0.50gw photovoltaic power generation and 1.75gw wind power generation plants in new energy planning areas such as North Bridge and ganhekou in Guazhou county.
The phase I project is planned to start on March 20, 2022 and be completed and put into operation by the end of June 2023.
This also indicates that in the first half of next year, China’s photovoltaic industry will welcome another 50000 tons of polysilicon to be put into operation.
In fact, from the planning information released by various companies, it is speculated that from the end of this year to the first half of next year, it will focus on ushering in a big wave of polysilicon production for example, the annual output of 100000 tons of polysilicon project announced by Xinte energy in February last year has a construction cycle of 1.5 years; Dongfang hopes that the polysilicon project with an annual output of 250000 tons announced in May last year will take only about one year at the fastest.
Therefore, the industry has also issued a reminder to guard against phased overcapacity for the expansion of polysilicon production.
On February 23, Ma Haitian said at the “online seminar on the development review of the photovoltaic industry in 2021 and the situation outlook in 2022” that China’s polysilicon production capacity is expected to be 3 million tons / year by the end of 2025. If overseas supply is included, it can meet the global photovoltaic installation demand of about 1000gw.
and from the demand side, by 2025, the global installed photovoltaic demand will be 400gw, which will be converted into 1.3 million tons of polysilicon
“Industrial increment is promising, but the 760000 tons / year of over investment planning will become excess capacity.” Ma Haitian said.
