Following Xuzhou and Leshan, the third granular silicon base of GCL TECH (03800.HK) was put into production, indicating that the R&D and manufacturing of GCL TECH's FBR granular silicon entered a "tri-pillar" era.

On the evening of December 27, the first 20,000-ton granular silicon module of the 100,000-ton project in Phase 1 of GCL TECH's Baotou base was officially put into production, with the supporting 150,000-ton nano-silicon production capacity also outputting qualified products. The material consumption and product quality of both products have reached the level expected in the project design.

Being the company's third R&D and manufacturing base of granular silicon after Xuzhou and Leshan, the Baotou base is also the company's first production base with complete supporting upstream materials. After the project is completed, the company's granular silicon production capacity will reach 260,000 tons. In addition, the company's 40,000-ton granular silicon replacement project in Xuzhou and the 100,000-ton project in Hohhot have entered the infrastructure construction stage, and the projects in Wuhai and other places have been approved by the board of directors. In the next three years, the company plans to increase its granular silicon production capacity at a rate of about 200,000 tons per year to maintain its global leadership in polysilicon technology, production capacity, cost, quality, and low carbon emission. As of the announcement date, the company's effective production capacity of granular silicon exceeds 120,000 tons, of which 60,000 tons in Xuzhou and 60,000 tons in the first three modules in Leshan were all at full capacity.

"As the new production capacity has been put into operation and completed, the cost advantage of large-scale granular silicon production has become increasingly obvious," said the relevant person in charge of GCL TECH.

It is reported that in June and July 2022, 30,000 tons of granular silicon production capacity was added to GCL TECH's Xuzhou base, and the first module of the Leshan base's 100,000-ton granular silicon project was put into production in succession. Since then, the company's granular silicon production capacity has entered a period of rapid explosion. According to the data disclosed by GCL TECH, in the third quarter of 2022, the gross profit of the company's granular silicon reached RMB 205/kg (including the profit of the by-product silicon powder), and the gross profit of rod silicon was RMB 151/kg (RMB 54/kg lower than that of granular silicon).