Hoku Materials has said that it will delay the engineering and construction of the closed-loop trichlorosilane (TCS) production area of its Pocatello, Idaho polysilicon plant until April 2009 and reassign construction management services.
"The revised scope of work is consistent with our plan to start-up the plant and commence shipments to our customers in the second half of 2009, which may be before our TCS plant is operational," said Dustin Shindo, Chairman and CEO of Hoku Scientific.
In the process, construction management services have been moved to JH Kelly, LLC, Hoku's general construction contractor. The revised plan is part of efforts to meet contracted shipments from the 4,000 metric ton polysilion plant while preserving financial resources as Hoku will initially operate the plant using third party TCS.
"Because the engineering of our TCS plant has been substantially completed by Dynamic Engineering, Inc., Stone & Webster is well positioned to resume the detailed engineering work for our TCS plant when our cash flow supports this investment. Our earlier ordering of long lead-time items, such as fluidized bed reactors and distillation columns, allows us to suspend this work for a few months without disproportionately impacting the final completion schedule," Shindo added.