On Friday, November 10, Sibelco announced that the $200 million expansion that was announced in April 2023 to double high purity quartz, called HPQ, installed capacity at the Spruce Pine facility is on track for completion in 2025. Subsequent to announcing this expansion, called Expansion 1, Sibelco concluded further long-term sales agreements with their solar photovoltaic customers that will require an additional expansion, called Expansion 2, of installed capacity beyond the previously announced expansion. The study phase for Expansion 2 has begun. This Expansion 2 is expected to be larger than the original planned expansion with a preliminary estimate indicating an investment of $500 million for the additional expansion, which will be executed over the 2024 – 2027 timeframe.
CEO Hilmar Rode commented: “Our investments will ensure that Spruce Pine remains the world’s leading source of HPQ. We are in an excellent position to respond to market demand and ramp up production sustainably thanks to our customers’ appreciation of our high-quality products. We clearly understand that our IOTA® HPQ products play a critical role in the global semi-conductor and solar photovoltaic industries and with Expansion 1 and Expansion 2 we intend to invest an estimated $700 million to provide an unrivalled value proposition to our customers in terms of product quality and availability as well as long-term security of supply.”
