Slurry Supply Running Stably, Wafer Production Unaffected

On Feb. 1, 2010, SiC-Processing AS experienced a fire in one of its two slurry plants at the Herøya industrial complex. The fire was caused by very fine silicon particles in one of the filter presses and was extinguished relatively quickly. A similar plant in Glomfjord was also stopped to seek for the root cause of the fire. Both plants at Herøya and in Glomfjord operate exclusively as on-site plants for the slurry recovery for REC Wafer in Norway.

During the second half of last week and over the weekend, the slurry processing lines at Herøya and in Glomfjord have been brought back on-line under close monitoring. Measures have been put in place to prevent similar incidents in the future, and the experience with the operations so far has been positive. SiC Processing Herøya 1 plant has operated without interruptions the entire time and all plants are therefore currently running stably.

Buffer stock of slurry allowed REC Wafer’s operations to continue as normal and was therefore not affected by the incident.