The supply and demand of metal silicon decrease, and the market trading is weak
Ferroalloy Online 2022-10-26: The epidemic situation in Xinjiang has spread. The transportation of automobile has been blocked, while the transportation of fire has slowed down. Various metal silicon factories have experienced different levels of tension in the transportation of raw materials, and the export of metal silicon products has also been hindered. It is reported that the metal silicon factory has reduced the production of some submerged arc furnaces. First, the raw materials are short of wood chips, silica coal, silica, etc.; second, the medical isolation after the outbreak of epidemic cases has reduced the production due to the shortage of workers in charge of production.
Sichuan started to enter the normal water period today, but the electricity price has been raised as early as October of the high water period. This is mainly because hydropower utilization has significantly decreased year on year under the influence of high temperature and drought extreme weather this year, while the cost of thermal power generation is high, and the price of industrial and commercial enterprises to make up the difference has increased. The electricity price in October has increased from 0.36-0.4 yuan/kWh in the wet season to 0.43-0.5 yuan/ton, and will be increased by 0.08-0.1 yuan in November. Subsequent actual electricity price shall be subject to month end settlement.
After the orderly shutdown of energy efficiency management in Yunnan, the Nujiang area cannot supply power normally due to circuit maintenance in the middle and late November. The Nujiang metal silicon plant is expected to shut down for 2-3 weeks (of course, some plants are also under periodic maintenance).
At the same time, the cost of the silicone factory has been generally inverted, and the company was unable to bear serious losses and had to implement the "stop production and save themselves" plan. It is understood that many organic silicon plants without supporting metal silicon projects plan to stop production or reduce the load to 4-5% at the end of the month; When the production of metal silicon is profitable, the organic silicon is still facing losses when it is put into production, so the organic silicon plant with metal silicon project also plans to reduce the production burden.
The export market also weakened synchronously, the overseas downstream operation rate was not high, and the demand decreased. In the first three quarters of 2022, the export volume decreased year on year. From January to September, the export volume decreased by 90416 tons, or 14.94%. The aluminum alloy market also continues to operate in a weak state, with the overall output maintaining a small decrease. In addition, some products have reduced the amount of metal silicon to save costs, and the support for the metal silicon market is small. The polysilicon market is fair, the operating rate is stable at a high level, and some new plants put into production at the beginning of the third quarter have reached the production capacity successively. The consumption of metal silicon has gradually increased, but the increase is less than that of organic silicon and export reduction.
The whole silicon metal market shows a double decrease in supply and demand, but the social inventory is still high. The metal silicon holder wanted to maintain the price, so the downstream had to wait and see at a low level, and the overall market trading was weak.