Silicone

This week, the price of DMC continued to fall. As the silicone monomer producers raised the operating rate, DMC supply increased. At the beginning of the week, the DMC price offered by some factories in Shandong Province dropped substantially, some other factories followed the suit. The price of silicon metal began rising. The price of methyl chloride stabilized, and that of methanol increased. The production cost of DMC was a bit up. In the week, amid the decreasing price of raw materials and the relatively low production cost, the prices of OH polymer, gum, silicone fluid and HCR were mostly falling. Although some silicone monomer producers plan to undergo maintenance, the oversupply of silicone is unchanged, coupled with the low possibility of increasing the price of silicon metal. Therefore, the silicone price is expected to be relatively low in the short period.   

Fumed silica

This week, the domestic fumed silica market was still sluggish. A few of domestic enterprises offered slightly decreasing prices. In terms of the raw materials, the price of monomethyltrichlorosilane (MTCS) consolidated and that of silicon tetrachloride (STC) was down a bit. Amid the relatively weak demand, the downstream customers purchased fumed silica on rigid demand, witnessing the low market trading volume and increasing inventory of fumed silica. The downstream enterprises enter the off-season production. Accordingly, the fumed silica market is expected to fluctuate in the short term.  

Silicon metal

The domestic price of silicon metal increased slightly this week, which is attributed to the domestic supply and output of silicon metal less than expected. Specifically, the producers in southwest China most resumed production during the rainy season, of which some of them in Sichuan Province were limited in production or delayed in resuming production due to the heat wave and the coming Universiade. Meanwhile, the majority of silicon metal factories in China suffered losses currently, which are strongly willing to raise the prices. Driven by the sentiment of buying price up rather than down, the downstream players became more active in enquiring. The price of silicon metal rose.

Polysilicon

This week, the polysilicon price rose a bit. The current polysilicon price made polysilicon enterprises almost unprofitable, and some of them were in maintenance or shutdown. This week, most of small factories signed orders for this July, the overall trading volume, compared with the previous week, declined to some extent. On the supply side, multiple projects are scheduled to go into production in late July, with the oversupply unchanged. On the demand, the downstream silicon wafer producers raised the operating rate, and the demand for polysilicon slightly improved. As the majority of N-type batteries capacity is upgraded in Q3 and the downstream customers increased to purchase N-type polysilicon (including recyclable polysilicon), the price disparity between N-type and P-type polysilicon is expected to be widened further.