Social Industrial Silicon Inventories in Major Three Chinese Markets Hit 3-year High

SHANGHAI, Jan 20 (SMM) - SMM statistics showed that industrial silicon inventories across social warehouses of the three regions totalled 123,000 mt as of January 13, 2023, a growth of 43% from a year earlier.

On the semi-annual changes in social inventories, the Covid dampened the consumption in the first half of 2022. This, combined with high operating rates at silicon plants, decelerated the inventory declines in the industrial silicon industry. Meanwhile, the turnover rates of cargoes at Huangpu port and Tianjin port also underperformed those in 2021 due to sliding export orders amid poor overseas demand. The current total social inventory across the three places hit the highest in nearly three years.

The social inventories stood at around 12 days based on the production level in 2022. The days of production in 2021 stood at around 10 days. The social inventories grew, but the growth was insignificant.

On the supply and demand balance front, the oversupply in 2022 stood at around 300,000 mt. Therefore, in addition to the social inventories, there were still a considerable volume of invisible inventory, which mainly be distributed among silicon metal enterprises, some traders and downstream producers.