German chemical group and polysilicon maker Wacker Chemie is partially satisfied with its start to the new fiscal year. The company said that the market environment for polysilicon is difficult. “Spot-market prices for solar silicon have declined significantly in recent weeks,” said a press statement from Wacker.
The group, however, expects further growth in the global PV market for this year, and that this growth “will have a positive impact on polysilicon demand”.
In the first quarter, the company’s polysilicon business achieved a turnover of €268.1 million ($291.5 million). This is 2% down compared to the same quarter in 2016 and 10% over the previous quarter. The company blames lower volumes in the solar business for this revenue decline.
Higher polysilicon prices, Wacker specified, supported the division’s sales. In the past weeks, however, prices for polysilicon dropped significantly, the company added. “The division made use of this situation to increase its inventory levels in Asia, and thus considerably shorten delivery times to its customers in the region,” said Wacker in its statement.
The division’s Ebitda for the quarter was €70.5 million, up 79% compared to a year earlier. This result was attributable to the costs incurred last year for the commissioning of the U.S. polysilicon plant in Charleston, Tennessee. Compared to the fourth quarter of last year, however, Ebitda declined by 19%. “One of the main reasons for this decrease,” Wacker said, “was the special income of €13.3 million posted in Q4 2016 from advance payments retained and damages received from solar-sector customers.”
Overall, Wacker Chemie achieved revenue of €1.21 billion in the first quarter, up around 8% year-on-year. The company’s Ebit for the quarter was €73.2 million, up 14% from a year earlier, while Ebitda was €229.3 million.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.