On December 8, 2010 OCI Company Ltd. (Seoul, South Korea) announced plans to increase efficiencies at one of its existing polysilicon plants and to build a new 20,000 metric ton per year (MTY) polysilicon plant in Gunsan, South Korea. The company will invest USD$1.4 billion in its new P4 plant and USD$245 million in de-bottlenecking its P3 facility. OCI states that it will begin work on both projects in December 2010, and plans to complete all work including the P4 plant by October 2012. "The large-scale expansion is designed to support continuously increasing demand for high-purity polysilicon products," stated an un-named OCI official in a press statement released by the company. "We shall strengthen our market dominance through satisfying the needs of existing and new customers.”

OCI supplying 10-nine and 11-nine polysilicon to 50 customers

The planned increase in capacity at the P3 facility and construction of the new facility will bring OCI's production capacity to 62,000MTY, which is greater than the current capacity of any polysilicon company in the world. OCI states that it is supplying 10-nine (99.99999999%) grade and 11-nine (99.999999999%) grade polysilicon to about 50 customers worldwide. OCI has started trial production at its new 10,000MTY P3 plant with official startup scheduled by the end of December 2010. The company states that through two de-bottlenecking projects it will increase the capacity of the plant by 15,000MTY.

2010-12-11| Courtesy: OCI | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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