On the evening of November 19th, HNJB Carbon Technology Group, a leading manufacturer of carbon/carbon composite materials in China, issued an announcement stating that the company intends to issue convertible bonds to unspecified objects. The total amount of funds raised will not exceed 610 million yuan, mainly for photovoltaics. The industry’s monocrystalline silicon manufacturing thermal field system uses carbon/carbon composite material capacity construction projects and supplements liquid cash.
The relevant person in charge of HNJB told the Cailian News that, with the technological advancement of the photovoltaic industry, the coexistence of new production capacity and thermal field upgrades and replacements of original equipment, the market demand for carbon-based composite materials continues to expand. The company’s new production line of 600 tons of advanced carbon-based composite materials this time can play a scale effect and reduce costs. At the same time, due to strong downstream demand, it will grab this market in the next few years.
HNJB plans to invest 701 million yuan in the Eastern Industrial Park of the National High-tech Zone to build a new production line with an annual output of 600 tons of advanced carbon-based composite materials. The construction period is 24 months, from November 2020 to October 2022.
As a leading manufacturer of advanced carbon-based composite materials in China, the company’s main products are used in single crystal drawing furnaces and polycrystalline ingot furnace thermal field systems. It is a high-barrier photovoltaic auxiliary material with a small number of suppliers. Its main customers include industry leaders such as Longji (601012.SH), Zhonghuan (002129.SZ), JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS), JA Solar (002459.SZ) and other industries.
As the most profitable link in the photovoltaic industry chain, the silicon wafer market has formed a duopoly of Longji and Zhonghuan. The two companies continue to launch expansion plans to defend market share. Next year’s capacity expansion speed exceeds market expectations.
The tide is rising. With the development of the photovoltaic and semiconductor industries, the demand for HNJB’s thermal field system materials has increased, and the company’s capacity expansion has also shown “acceleration.” From the timeline, as of the end of 2019, the company’s carbon-based composite material production capacity is about 220 tons; the company’s listing of 944 million yuan for the newly increased annual production capacity of 550 tons of carbon/carbon composite materials is already under construction.
HNJB’s current production capacity is very tight. This year, the company has accelerated the expansion of old production capacity and the construction of fund-raising projects. As of September 30 this year, the production capacity has exceeded 300 tons. It is expected that the first phase will reach production capacity (200 tons) in the first half of 2021, and the second phase will reach production capacity (350 tons) by the end of August 2021.
Based on this calculation, the company will have a total annual production capacity of 750-800 tons after all raised investment projects reach production in 2021. This time, it plans to add another 600-ton production line, and the total production capacity will exceed 1,350 tons. This means that by the end of 2022, the company’s overall production capacity will triple on the basis of existing production capacity.
HNJB insiders believe that with the development of downstream large-size silicon wafers, the thermal field will evolve toward larger sizes. Last year, the mainstream thermal field was 28 inches, this year it was 30 inches and 32 inches, and next year it was mainly 32 inches and 36 inches. The development of large-size silicon wafers has made the cost-effective advantages of carbon-based composite thermal field components more obvious, and the replacement of graphite by carbon-based composites has accelerated.
As a leading company in the silicon wafer market, Zhonghuan believes that large-size silicon wafers will be the general trend. Another industry insider analyzed that in the past, the large-diameter thermal field was mainly monopolized by foreign companies such as SGL. With the progress of localization, China has emerged including HNJB Jinbo, XACM, ZTHJ and other companies that are fully seizing the market.