(Yicai Global) March 3 -- Shares in Wuxi Shangji Automation advanced by over 3 percent today after the Chinese silicon wafer giant said it has secured long-term orders from photovoltaic cell maker Jiangsu Xinchao Photovoltaic Energy Development and Canadian PV panel maker Canadian Solar worth a combined CNY13.6 billion (USD2 billion).

Shangji’s share price [SHA:603185] closed up 2.7 percent at CNY114.40 (USD16.60). Earlier in the day it hit CNY114.98.

Xinchao Photovoltaic plans to buy 1.3 billion pieces of monocrystalline silicon wafers from Shangji’s factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China, from now until 2026, the Wuxi, eastern Jiangsu province-based firm said yesterday.

While Canadian Solar’s China subsidiary will purchase 10,000 tonnes of monocrystalline silicon sticks as well as 250 million pieces of monocrystalline silicon wafers from the Baotou production base this year, it added.

The two orders are worth CNY13.6 billion, including tax, based on the most recent market prices provided by solar market research firm InfoLink Consulting. Jiangsu Xinchao’s order comes to CNY8.24 billion (USD1.20 billion), while that of Ontario-based Canadian Solar is CNY5.38 billion.

The actual purchase amount and pricing will be negotiated each month, Shangji said. The real purchase amount could fluctuate up to 20 percent either way around the negotiated benchmark.

Shangji has been rapidly expanding capacity of monocrystalline silicon wafers, a key raw material used to make solar cells and an important source of profit for the company. Its yearly output is now around 35 gigawatts, up from 12 GW at the beginning of 2021, and making it one of the biggest solar wafer suppliers in China.

And orders have been flooding in. Just last week the Baotou facility received another order worth CNY5.9 billion (USD855.1 million) for 950 million pieces of solar wafers to be delivered over the next two years.

Shangji is expecting net profit for the year 2022 to surge by as much as 93 percent to up to CNY3.3 billion (USD478.5 million), thanks to the continuous rise in solar wafer prices last year, as well as new production capacity coming online, the firm said at the end of January. This would be the third year in a row that the company achieves profit growth.

Editor: Kim Taylor