Jinglong Group, the largest monosilicon producer in China and the largest shareholder of JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd (NASDAQ: JASO), revealed that it will expand its monosilicon production capacity to 3,000 tons and produce 1,280 tons of monosilicon and 45 million silicon wafers this year.

Located in north China's Hebei Province, Jinglong is one of the world's leading solar-grade monosilicon producers currently with an annual monosilicon production capacity of 1,800 tons. It produced 1,169 tons of monosilicon and 16.83 million silicon wafers last year.

Its monosilicon output made up 50 percent of China's total.

"It is not a blind expansion, but decided in accordance with raw material supply and market demand," said Jin Baofang, chairman of the group.

According to the chairman, Jinglong has joined in the expansion plan of the world's largest polysilicon producer Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation (HSC) and signed long-term supply contract with the foreign strategic partner, which may ensure a certain part of its raw material supply.

As one of HSC's 20 strategic partners worldwide and the only one in the Chinese mainland, Jinglong will obtain a growing supply of polysilicon from HSC, Jin said.

The group also owns a five percent stake in a polysilicon project in Xuzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, which will give it a priority in polysilicon supply.

Meanwhile, the explosive growth on the world's solar PV industry in the recent years has triggered a huge demand for monosilicon wafer to produce solar cells.

Incomplete statistics shows that 38 solar energy enterprises with an annual solar cell production capacity of 1,278 megawatts (MW) have emerged in China so far.

Its listed subsidiary JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd, which has 75MW of production capacity in operation so far, is building an additional 100 MW of production lines now, which means a vast need for silicon wafers.

Source: Xinhua