Wednesday 21/10/2009 Page: 51
Japanese chemicals giant Shin-Etsu has pushed the button on a $200 million expansion of its Kemerton silicon plant in the South-West to turn it into one of the world's biggest producers of the key solar panel ingredient. The group revealed yesterday that its Australian arm, Simcoa, would double the number of furnaces at Kemerton to four between now and 2013 in a two-stage expansion. The first stage, worth about $100 million, will see a third furnace built by 2011 to increase Simcoa's annual capacity to 48,000 tonnes while a fourth furnace slated for the second phase would lift production to 64,000 tonnes and transform the Kemerton smelter into one of the biggest of its kind in the world.
Production at Simcoa's Moora quartz mine would rise in line with the expansion, from 80,000 tonnes to 160,000 tonnes. Simcoa's Bunbury-based vice president, Jim Brosnan, said up to 200 jobs would be created at peak construction, with an extra 40 full time jobs on offer at the company's mining and smelting operations when the upgrade was complete. He said the go-ahead by Shin-Etsu had been a long time coming and would be a boon for the South-West. But Simcoa faced a challenge in competing for skilled labour with a number of other big WA resource projects also coming on stream. "It's very exciting for the South- West (but) I suppose the concern is that with so many other projects going, I just hope we can find the labour and costs don't blow out through the roof," Mr Brosnan said.
The final sign-off from Shin-Etsu comes almost one year after the plan was first formally mooted. Mr Brosnan said the global financial crisis had caused Simcoa's Japanese parents to take a more cautious approach. However, significant demand was starting to re-emerge in the silicon industry, prompting the go-ahead. He said the expansion was primarily being driven by the photovoltaic - or solar cell - industry, which has been spurred on by billions of dollars of government funding worldwide as authorities grappled with climate change.
"There's huge demand worldwide now for silicon for photovoltaic and that's really the main driver," he said. "For every tonne of high purity silicon you need two tonnes of conventional silicon. "In the short term Europe is definitely the driver and Germany and Spain have probably been the leaders." As one of the biggest users of electricity from the South-West grid, Simcoa has been keenly watching progress of the Federal Government's proposed emissions trading scheme. Mr Brosnan said that although the company would incur a cost under an ETS, the arrangements as proposed would not "kill the project".
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