As the next "neck" link in the photovoltaic industry, the high-purity quartz sand has maintained a high level in the market, attracting another listed company.
On the evening of February 2, Yishitong (688733), which focuses on boehmite, announced that it intends to invest in the construction of a high-purity quartz sand project with an annual output of 20,000 tons with an annual output of 20,000 tons with Bengbu Yishitong Electronic Communication Materials, a wholly-owned subsidiary. The project is located in Yishitong Carbon Neutral Industrial Park, Huaiyuan County, Bengbu City, Anhui Province, with a total investment of about 6500 million yuan, planning to build 4 high-purity quartz sand production lines.
Since the beginning of 2023, high-purity quartz sand has been in short supply. High-purity quartz sand is mainly used in the photovoltaic industry to produce photovoltaic quartz crucibles, which is an important consumable in the crystal pulling process. In the crystal pulling process, the photovoltaic quartz crucible is used to hold the molten polysilicon material, which needs to be replaced after about 350 hours of use.
Previously, a research report by Zhejiang businessmen showed that taking M10 silicon wafers as an example, photovoltaic high-purity quartz crucibles accounted for about 13% of the non-silicon cost, which is one of the main non-silicon costs of silicon wafers. The high-purity quartz sand accounts for 62% of the cost of photovoltaic quartz crucibles and is the main material in the crucible production process.
High-purity quartz sand for photovoltaics will continue to be tight in supply and demand. "Yinhe** predicts that from 2023 to 2025, the global demand for high-purity quartz sand for photovoltaics will be 1080,000 tons, 1310,000 tons, 1540,000 tons, corresponding to the balance of supply and demand is about -390,000 tons, -270,000 tons, -20,000 tons.
This project is a decision made after comprehensive consideration based on the urgent market demand for high-purity quartz sand, the monopoly of foreign resources, and the industrialization of its own R&D results. Yishitong said that after the completion of this project, the mass production of high-end high-purity quartz sand can be realized through artificial synthesis technology, get rid of the dependence on scarce and high-quality ore resources, and continue to meet the raw material demand of photovoltaic quartz crucible inner sand, semiconductor quartz utensils and pipes.
At present, the products of this project have completed small batch trial production. Yishitong said that it intends to further promote large-scale production, and continue to improve the company's profitability and differentiated competitive advantages by entering the field of high-purity quartz sand.
The main business of Yishitong is the R&D, production and sales of advanced inorganic non-metallic composite materials, and the main products include lithium battery coating materials, electronic communication functional filling materials and low-smoke halogen-free flame retardant materials. Among them, the company's lithium battery coating materials are mainly boehmite products.
Affected by the lack of consumer confidence in new energy vehicles and the inventory consumption of downstream enterprises, the demand for lithium battery coating materials has declined in stages, and the shipments of the company's main product boehmite have decreased. The company expects to achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company of 21 million yuan to 27 million yuan in 2023, a decrease of about 1 compared with the same period last year200 million to 12.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8162% to 857%。
In recent years, Yishitong has frequently invested heavily. On September 18, 2023, OneStone announced that it intends to invest in the construction of a solid oxide energy system project with an annual output of 1GW in Hefei High-tech Zone with a wholly-owned subsidiary as the implementation body, with a total investment of about 121.1 billion yuan. Previously, the company invested 1 billion yuan in Huaiyuan, Anhui Province to build a 5G communication key materials project for Yishitong.
Yishitong said that the funds for the construction of the high-purity quartz sand project are the company's own and self-raised funds, which may cause certain pressure on the company's daily cash flow.
The reporter noted that at present, a number of listed companies are aiming at the market of high-purity quartz sand. In January, Dale New Materials completed the acquisition of 70% of the equity of Lihui New Materials, which is mainly engaged in high-purity quartz sand business and currently mainly ships outer sand products. Dale New Materials said that in 2024, it will focus on accelerating the release and improvement of the production capacity of high-purity quartz sand in mergers and acquisitions, and actively promote the semiconductor industry and new energy.