Korean energy companies, namely Hanwha Qcells and OCI Holdings, are expected to benefit from the United States’ decision to impose tariffs of up to 3,500 percent on solar energy imports from Southeast Asia.
Earlier this week, the US Department of Commerce released the final tariff amounts planned for solar cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The antidumping and countervailing duties seek to protect American solar panel manufacturing.
The decision came after the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, which includes Hanwha Qcells, a solar energy unit under Korea’s Hanwha Solution, Arizona-based First Solar, and other smaller energy companies, filed a petition in April last year, prompting the US authorities to begin the investigation.
The group claimed that Chinese companies were producing solar products in Southeast Asia to avoid paying tariffs on their exports, and were subsidized by the governments of the four aforementioned countries. These products would then be "dumped" into the US market at low prices that other solar panel manufacturers could not compete with.
As the announcement of the tariffs on Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam puts pressure on China's major solar panel producers, the US solar panel supply chain will be rearranged with Korean companies becoming key players, Kang Dong-jin, an analyst at Hyundai Motor Securities, said in a report on Wednesday.
“The antidumping and countervailing duties will be added to (the US') reciprocal tariffs and (the four countries) will weaken in terms of their competitiveness in American exports,” said Kang. “Aside from these four countries, other nations will also find it difficult to export solar cells and modules to the US.”
The analyst selected Hanwha Solution as the most preferred stock in the solar energy industry as the Korean company is setting up what it calls “Solar Hub,” a 3 trillion won ($2.1 billion) investment to establish a complete solar panel production chain in the state of Georgia. Once the Solar Hub project is completed by year-end, Hanwha will secure an annual production capacity of 8.4 gigawatts and ramp up its US production portion to 70 percent.
Kang also pinpointed OCI Holdings as a stock to keep an eye on. The Korean company is investing $265 million to build solar cell production plant in Texas. OCI Holdings plans to begin commercial production of 1 GW solar cells in the first half of next year and gradually increase the capacity later to eventually reach 2 GW.
“Hanwha Qcells had been suffering due to dumped and subsidized solar panel imports from Southeast Asian countries despite investing heavily in its US production,” said an official working in the solar energy sector.
“The tariffs will give the Korean companies fair competition in the US market.”
The tariffs on the Southeast Asian countries will go into effect after and if the US International Trade Commission makes a final ruling by June 2 that the American solar panel industry was harmed due to the imports from those nations.
hwkan@heraldcorp.com
