Duisburg/Húsavík (Iceland), July 3, 2020. PCC BakkiSilicon hf. will temporarily shut down also the second arc furnace of our silicon metal plant in Iceland in July. This serves to prepare the rehabilitation of the roof construction of the plant’s filter house by the plant constructor, scheduled for August 2020. As announced, this reconstruction will take several weeks. PCC BakkiSilicon will also use this downtime for regular maintenance and repair work. After completion of the work, however, the plant is unlikely to be restarted immediately, since the silicon metal market has plummeted again, after a brief recovery at the beginning of the year, due to the Covid 19 restrictions and the associated global economic slowdown. Like many other silicon metal manufacturers worldwide, PCC BakkiSilicon is therefore forced to temporarily stop production. As a result, unfortunately, a large part of the local employees had to be dismissed, at least temporarily, in the last few days. The remaining team at PCC BakkiSilicon will work flat out to increase production efficiency, particularly through technical adjustments. Long-term improvements are also to be achieved on the commercial side to reduce costs and sustainably strengthen the earnings situation after restarting the plant.
