Suntech grabs more polysilicon from Nitol

Fuelling its aggressive expansion plans, Suntech has said that it has substantially increased its polysilicon supply agreement with Nitol Solar. Suntech made a $100 million investment in Nitol in early March 2008. The contract runs from 2009 to 2015.

“The expansion of our supply relationship with Nitol Solar further improves our long term silicon outlook and provides a robust base to rapidly grow our business,” said Dr. Zhengrong Shi, Suntech’s Chairman and CEO. “With Suntech’s financial strength from the recent capital raising and plans for rapid capacity expansion, we will continue to build relationships with silicon producers that increase our long term cost visibility. We believe that this favorably priced silicon will accelerate our path to grid parity and we are confident that this will drive enormous demand for solar power systems regardless of the subsidy environment.”

“Now that we have a strong order backlog and a diverse customer base, we are concentrating on ramping our first phase polysilicon plant and initiating the production of high-quality polysilicon as soon as possible,” commented Dmitry Kotenko, Chief Executive Officer of Nitol Solar.

Although Suntech and Nitol have not revealed the scale of the original contract nor the new enlarged deal, Nitol’s other supply deals are not viewed as extensive.

Nitol’s deal, which starts from January 2009 to December 2014, is worth $166 million over the five-year period.

The agreement with Evergreen, signed last year, was to produce approximately 400MW over the term of the contract, which was stated as six years, starting again in 2009.

Another deal was between Nitol and ersol Solar Energy for supply of polysilicon from 2009 to 2012. The total supply deal was put at 140MW over the four-year period.