Shares fully diluted(m): 372.4
Shareprice (NOK): 18.0
M.cap (musd): 791
NIBD (musd): 82
EV (musd): 873




THE CASE: TRANSITIONING TO A BATTERY PLAY COULD IMPLY 5X UPSIDE!

After years of challenges due to the solar trade war between the US and China, REC Silicon is positioned to turn around the battery industry and become the leading provider of silane gas to the producers of silicon anodes for battery application. A market that is set to grow exponentially as EV manufactures and battery producers scramble to increase efficiency and longevity while at the same time as cutting costs and weight. Some customers of REC today (Sila Nano and Group 14) have managed to overcome this issue by replacing anodes in Lithium-Ion batteries made from graphite carbon with silicon. This improves energy density as silicon can store 10x lithium vs carbon. High purity Silane is the most efficient way of making silicon anodes.

REC is the only producer of silane gas in Europe and USA and has a capacity of 7.000 MT in Butte and 25.000 MT in Moses Lake = 32.000 MT total. Their current production at Butte of around 3k mt gives them a global market share of 70%. Their total capacity can supply 1m electric vehicles. This radically improves the earnings of a company which historically has had the same capacity linked to the oversupplied solar polysilicon market, as the silane gas was used as input in the manufacturing of solar grade polysilicon.

Silangas prices today is around 25 dollars and REC Silicon has a cash cost less than 10 dollars - with its capacity of 32k MT Silan. Assuming, similar 25 USD of prices today we are looking at EBITDA (100% capacity) of 480 MUSD. This comes from already installed capacity (REC has already fully financed the reopenening of Moses Lake). Applying a conservative multiple of 10x EBITDA (100% silan capacity) you get 108 NOK a share (only Moses Lake and Butte).


Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) estimate a sale of 8.5m EVs in 2025 and 26m a year by 2030. The anodes will probably not entirely be converted to silicon anodes by 2025 but the potential should at least be pretty obvious.











BACKGROUND

REC Silicon is the world’s largest producer of silane gas with its current production out of Butte Montana. Butte, currently has 70% global market share in the silane gas market. In addition to Butte, REC will have a an additional 25k MT capacity per year of silane gas at Moses Lake when it is reopened. Silanegas is the principal material used in the production of polysilicon, and is an essential input material for thin film PV, semiconductors and LCD display manufacturing. REC Silicon also has the world’s largest silane gas ISO module container fleet and is a world leader in other silicon gases - dichlorosilane (DCS), monochlorosilane (MCS), disilane and polysilanes.

The patented, closed-loop silane manufacturing process used by REC Silicon produces consistent, ultra pure silane by conversion of metallurgical grade silicon into trichlorosilane and redistribution/ distillation to silane. The continuous-flow process recycles all hydrogen and chloride materials back to the initial reactors, while continuous distillation steps purify the gas. The entire process is a low waste, low impact and environmentally friendly procedure.


After being in distress for several years as a result of the US-China solar trade war, REC announced two transformational partnerships in October 2020. These two partnerships will enable REC to reopen Moses Lake sometimes during 2022 and maybe as early as end 2021.

Just after announcing the new partnerships, Pareto and Arctic Securities secured appr. 1 billion NOK to recapitalise the company and enable it to restart it Moses Lake operations. The cornerstone investor in this deal was reputable industrial conglomerate Aker ASA (Kjell Inge Røkke) who increased their stake with 300 mnok at nok 10.80 per share, taking their ownership to 24.7%. Aker had earlier in 2020 bought the entire stake from a distressed owner, making Aker the biggest shareholder.

REC has announced that these two partnerships give the Moses Lake facility sufficient production level and visibility for reopening Moses Lake. They have guided for 75% capacity utilization at Moses Lake for 2023 with an EBITDA of 100 musd. In addition to this, they will have 30-50 musd EBITDA at the Butte plant. Adjusted for SG&A, REC will have an EBITDA of around 130musd in 2023 growing to 200 musd (estimate by Pareto) in 2025.


The two partnerships secures the business case until 2025, but at some point in the near future you will see the demand after silane skyrocketing. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) estimate a sale of 8.5m EVs in 2025 and 26m a year by 2030. The anodes will probably not entirely be converted to silicon anodes by 2025. Obviously, the need to expand REC’s production capacity will become a theme sooner rather than later, as the demand for silane for the EV battery market grows rapidly. Existing Moses Lake facilities have had an historical cap ex of 1.7 bnUSD, which is close to the current replacement cost today. This translates to a value of 38 NOK a share.

This will probably lead to a capacity expansion. An expansion will make investors value the existing facilities above its replacement cost, and will look to future earnings and growth.
The case stated above is dependent on the presumption that silicon anodes will make its way into batteries, replacing graphite anodes. Here are some reasons why its likely.


SILICON BASED ANODES FOR LITHIUM BATTERIES

To get a deeper understanding of this its strongly recommended to read the white paper of Sila Nanotechnologies written by Gene Berdichevsky, CEO (no7 employee in Tesla) and CTO, Gleb Yushin.


https://silanano.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/The-Future-of-Energy-Storage.pdf

Sila Nanotechnologies will produce silicon anodes for batteries, starting with consumer electronics (rumored to happen in 2021) and then expanding to EVs.

They claim that enhancing the Lithium-ion battery is the only path forward in the foreseeable future (read: next decades) and that battery cost and performance is holding back mass adoption of EVs. Daimler invested 170 musd in the Sila Nanotechnologies early 2019 (1 bn USD valuation) to be a part of the making of next generation Lithium battery.

Here are some other links to articles about Lithium-ion batteries

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-03/battery-reality-there-s-nothing-better-than-lithium-ion-coming-soon

…and here more specific on the team and background from Sila Nano

https://www.inc.com/magazine/201904/jeff-bercovici/sila-nanotechnologies-silicon-lithium-ion-battery.html



Unknown to most in the global capital markets and the public in general, Sila Nano is currently a customer of REC Silicon (for smaller quantities of silane gas for Sila’s test production) , but could prove to become a big customer in the future if only fractions of Sila’s predictions come through.

Here is an interview by CNN of the CEO, Gene Berdichevsky.

https://silanano.com//wp-content/uploads/2020/01/gene-berdichevsky-cnni-16-jan-2020-6Mz.mp4

THE MAIN CHALLENGE WITH SILICON ANODES IS GETTING SOLVED

Anodes in Lithium-ion batteries today is made of graphite. So by replacing some or all of the graphite with silicon, the energy density of the battery is significantly improved (silicon can store 10x the quantity of lithium compared to graphite) reduce weight and cost, unlocks the cathode capacity in the battery (will come back to this) resulting in faster charging and much better longevity.

The main challenge has been that silicon anodes expands up to 3x during charging and then decrease to 1/3 with de-charging. This has broken the battery structure (the surface called SEI) so it will limit the number of charging cycles.

Both Sila Nano and Group14 claim they have fully or partly overcome this huge issue. This is done by packaging the anode inside a material that make the surface not break down during charging and de-charging.

Tesla endorsed silicon as the anode material of the future at their battery day in September 2020. Tesla are already using silicon oxides in their Panasonic battery, and is planning to use metallurgical silicon in the next phase of development. You might say this is a natural path towards next generation silicon anodes. Here is an article from Barrons exploring this with reference to REC customer Group14.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/ev-battery-cathodes-are-getting-better-dont-forget-about-the-anodes-51603105205

There is strong arguments for why next generation batteries for EVs will be using silicon as the main anode material. The use will gradually start to ramp up from 2023, and probably start to accelerate at some point after this.

Let’s go back to the white paper of Sila. They see a growth in the production of batteries from 20 Gwh pre the “EV-era” to 2000 Gwh by 2030 (when they expect about 100mill EVs on the road). This is expected to grow toto 30.000 Gwh by 2050. These figures for demand for battery capacity corresponds to the demand for 2-4 mill tonnes of silicon! Note that Sila expects solid state batteries to mainly be used for some niches areas, and thatsolid state batteries will be irrelevant in the battery market revolution.

Looking only to EV market, we can say something about the size of the market by looking at how much silicone or silane you would need per anode. Numbers range from 30 to 50 kg and its uncertain if this refers to silane or silicon. But if it is silicon the silane numbers are higher (1.4x). If we remember the estimated number of EVs sold per year in 2025 and 2030 (8.5 mill and 26 mill) you get demand figures for silane in 2025 (if this is already 100 percent adopted) between 255.000 and 425.000 metric tonnes. In 2030 the corresponding numbers will be 780.000 mt and 1.300.000 mt. T