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Good find, Pop.

I especially like this line...

"Judging by the first quarter, sales were not bad," he said. "We didn't rest over the Lunar New Year. We worked overtime."

If ASP stays where it is now (which I believe it will) some of these companies could indeed be making profit in the 2nd half. Companies are determined to make profit this time. It will happen sooner than we think.

I disagree. I ain't seeing no profit if ASPs don't rise. Take TSL for instance. In 13Q3 @ full utilization we got non-si 45, si 10, OPEX 11, Int 2, pre-tax profit 4 (5%) makes 72 cents. And this is fairly optimistic assuming no rise in poly and consumables.

However I don't think there's reason to worry since I think ASPs will continue to rise.

I was hoping for Q3 as well, but ASP has to go up to 0.70 for most of them to make it count, while they drop processing to 0.55 to 0.57.

I believe article speaks about q3. However move to 0.70 per watt is not a move which would be followed by rise in price of poly. In Q4 TSL sold at 0.67. In my opinion price of poly at 20 kg (no need to buy spot) is only .108 with the 5.4g averages. with Q4 pricing of 0.61, amo could give them 3 cents there alone to be at 0.58. If they cut processing non-poly to 0.45 this will make even better

Chinese tariffs have no impact on poly destined for export, only if poly is imported domestically. Hence YGE has made a pact with GCL. All selling on export will buy as they have poly from OCI, Wacker etc. Those who sell mostly spot and that is REC will be hurt more than others.
EU tariffs huge problem for small guys. Outsourcing arrangements are being made. Small guys have no money. Non competitive, small size manufacturer is being pressed. and turns domestic, but without access to liquidity, customer base will shrink for them.
At the same time they are still a force (small guys) and they pressure ASP. This pressure will not allow raw materials to rise.
I actually think that model of $0.60 all-in and $0.80 is possible in area of 40GW of demand. At that pricing only Chinese will be profitable, helping them to be suppliers of most of it.
ps. I am moving this thread to Trina

Curious as to what people's assumptions are on Trina's percentage of revenues coming from projects in 2H 2013 vs 1H 2013. I would think that more of their project revenues would be coming in later in the year (closer to 25 pct of revenues in 2H 2013 vs 15pct in 1H 2013)

I made expectation of 30% growth over H1 for all, do not see Trina being different here. Something like 43% in H1 and 56% in H2 They are all counting on the same factors.
EU tariffs need to have an outcome. Market was riding on the US ones and nobody cares much about them today (market wise). The US market has been cleared of small guys but big guys are staging a comeback in Q1 and expect to send more and more to the US.
I hope and I think Chinese government is with me on it, that tariffs will be company based at various % stages, benefiting those with high scale and also ones with the best way to prove their costs in value chain. Liquidity matters at home will clean companies, and tariffs will block global markets, leaving space to big an stronger. 2.5GW of yearly export volume is a big prize to grab.

Get on board shorts will not wait untill trina become profitable i suspect last push down will be made alone with general market sometime soon but it will be last one and sometime in may we will see clear reversal

Doesn't Trina have some tariff issues?

With 600 MW quarterly cell capacity and shipping 550 MW per Q in 2013 after Q1, they have to idle 50 MW based on business volume. If they want to ship 100 MW per Q to U.S., they have to idle another 100 MW. If they want to ship to EU without tariff risk after March 5 they have to outsource that too outside China. Say that they want to ship 25-30% to EU, then they need to idle another 150 MW. That's 300 MW idling penalty and 250 MW outsourcing penalty. They might need to outsource 150 MW modules too for EU shipments, again with an outsourcing penalty, but less idling penalty.

If they see net profits in June under this adverse structure considering the political risks, then that is a truely bullish comment for the industry.

They keep on fighting US tariffes though and now Stp no longer there someone has to feel up the gap

Quoted from "explo"

With 600 MW quarterly cell capacity and shipping 550 MW per Q in 2013 after Q1, they have to idle 50 MW based on business volume. If they want to ship 100 MW per Q to U.S.

I think this is a fair comment. If their business resembles 2012 revenue distribution adjusted for ASP, they would ship around 400MW to the US. that would require buying cells from Taiwan. However they have been selling cells in the past and I think they will do so in China. They idled the cell mfg the most in 2012. Well, they are making agreements to outsource to EU with Jabil, they have agreements in Canada.
I do not know structure for EU tariffs, so I cannot comment on this in depth. Isn't EU every value chain item from wafers to modules to be under tariffs?
They also see buying someone in Europe, I heard this recently.

Until they know about the EU tariffs they still have to implement tariff free solutions to be able to ship there. Chinese panel makers refuse to take over the retroactive tariff risk (meaning they see it as substantial) and the importers don't want to take this risk either. It basically means that the price diff between potential tariff free and potential tariff exposed modules are already happening with the diff based on expected potential tariff magnitude.

The EU tariffs might apply to the whole wafer to module value-chain and thus the outsourcing costs are higher than for U.S. shipments. As an example Trina has 300 MW quarterly wafer capacity, so they already need to outsource 250 MW of their 550 MW shipments. Their contract requires them to get at least 50% of their outsourced wafers from GCL. That leaves 125 MW outsourcable to others. They might have to outsource this to more expensive production outside China.

As you say the overall tariff situation is causing more or less issues and pleasures for all players. Good for other energy sources.

Quoted from "Pop2mollys"

No one here expected TSL

I thought I kind of did. I am sure I thought of SOL but I think also TSL. CSIQ Q2.
https://solarpvinvestor.com/spvi-news/454…-tones-for-2013


I decided to break my promise on SA. I am going to do article, hopefully they will publish it.