Benjamin Crespy: Yes, Javier, and thank you, Martin, for the question. So I think silicon supply can be expanding through multiple routes, right? And the CapEx intensity of those options is very different. If you talk about shrinkable capacity, furnace conversion, plant reactivation, brownfield or greenfield, the CapEx intensity of all those options are very different. And I think as an integrated company, we are able to have quickly capacity by reactivating assets, and the cost of that is maybe 50x less the cost of a greenfield. And that’s what we have been doing. That’s what we are doing now in Polokwane and that’s what we’ve been doing earlier this year in Selma. I think on top of that, if — our global footprint is a source of competitive advantage, providing a secure integrated supply of critical inputs like quartz, coal and electrodes.
And I think that’s significant when you are a nuclear, those — access to those critical inputs is not that easy. And I think another advantage is the proximity to market.
Martin Englert: Okay. That’s helpful. And I guess, probably worth highlighting that there has been some — over the last cycle or 10 years or so, there has been some notable capacity reductions within the North American market that — you had one facility that exited. Dow had a facility that exited, and I believe, remains down. So net-net, maybe things aren’t wildly different even with a greenfield expansion. Can you touch on maybe any more details to share about the high-purity silicon that you’re ramping in Spain? Any comments on leveraging the prior know-how that you gain from an upgraded metallurgical product that you were previously trying to take to market? And then as the market turned down, that kind of went away, but it seems like you’re leveraging some of that today.
Javier López Madrid: Absolutely. And Benoist, maybe you can add a bit.
Benoist Ollivier: Yes, I can add a bit. The high-purity silicon we’re targeting is of slightly lower purity than on solar, which makes the cost extremely efficient because it’s the first process steps that we are basically adapting to — into the plants mostly. So the production of high-purity silicon is integrated into the plants, which is one of our main cost advantage. The second is that we will develop the metallurgical route. As I mentioned earlier, it’s the easiest, most efficient route, less CapEx-intensive route to — when you want to put silicon into the anodes. We’re targeting specifically the silicon carbon composites markets and also the SiOs — SiO producers. And eventually, we believe this solution can be engineered for the silicon-rich anodes, which are one of the alternatives for the lithium metal anodes in the solid-state batteries.
Javier López Madrid: Maybe — sorry, Martin, just maybe what is the expected growth, Benoist, for the market going forward on that type of…
Benoist Ollivier: So we have had negligible sales in 2022, a few hundred tons in advanced technology and battery. We expect to triple those sales year-on-year and with a marked step up as soon as the gigafactories will actually start consuming. And this is one of the challenge of these developments is to face the huge one-step demand of gigafactories. And that’s why we have to ready ourselves now, and we have started grading ourselves for quite some time now to be prepared for that big step.
Martin Englert: Okay. So kind of still in the preparation, I mean, you are selling volumes this year, and you’ll continue to — moving into 2025. But the bigger step change that you’re anticipating is 2025 when kind of more Western gigafactories are ramping — ramped and producing and consuming more. That’s more of the step change anticipated, right?
Unidentified Company Representative: Correct.
Martin Englert: Okay.
Unidentified Company Representative: It’s tripled until then.
Unidentified Company Representative: We triple every year until then. We will triple the volume under sales until then in 2020 — 2023 and 2024.
