Hoku Materials Reallocates Planned Polysilicon Capacity

Hoku Materials, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hoku Scientific, has reallocated its planned polysilicon capacity and ended contract amendment negotiations with Sanyo Electric and Global Expertise Wafer Division, a wholly owned subsidiary of Solar Fabrik.

The company has also secured an aggregate of more than $1 billion in new polysilicon purchase commitments from Kinko Energy, Tianwei New Energy, and Wealthy Rise International (Solargiga).

The company has exercised its option to terminate its polysilicon supply contract with Global Expertise Wafer Division (GEWD), and both Sanyo and Hoku have mutually exercised their options to terminate the supply agreement in place between their respective companies.

Hoku had previously reported that its planned Pocatello, Idaho polysilicon manufacturing facility was oversubscribed at its designed 3,500 metric ton annual production level. Termination of the Sanyo and GEWD contracts allowed Hoku to resolve this overage and reallocate some of its expected production capacity to Kinko Energy, Tianwei New Energy, and Solargiga. The contract terminations also enable the company to evaluate further supply contracts with other current and future customers, within its current expected capacity.

Dustin Shindo, CEO of Hoku Scientific, said: “This realignment of production capacity is a positive development for Hoku. We resolved the issue of our plant being oversubscribed, and gained the flexibility to allocate that capacity to customers that are able to provide up-front capital for plant construction costs, which the Sanyo and GEWD contracts did not do.”