REC Silicon shutting down Moses Lake facility

A company that had been a world leader in Moses Lake’s emergence as a manufacturing hub for high-tech industries, will be mothballing a plant that had been used to make a key gas used in production of polysilicon, which is used in everything from lithium-ion batteries to solar panels.

REC Silicon announced in late December that it was shutting down its Moses Lake plant, which opened in 1984, that manufactures silane gas. It earlier had stopped making polysilicon after it failed to meet the quality standards demanded by its client.

As a result of the shutdown, REC Silicon, which in 2008 was the world’s largest producer of polysilicon for use in photovoltaics and third-largest producer for all uses, announced Monday that it is laying off 224 workers.

Chuck Sutton, REC Silicon’s vice president of polysilicon sales and government relations, declined to disclose how many employees remain at the facility.

“REC Silicon acknowledges the impact on our employees who have made outstanding contributions to our company, as well as the impact on the surrounding community,” Sutton said in an email. “Beyond this, we are not going to comment on personnel matters.”

In 2008, the company’s Moses Lake plant and a larger facility it built in 1998 in Butte together were projected to produce about 7,000 metric tons of polysilicon, which is used in the semiconductor industry. Currently, a metric ton of polysilicon sells for about $5,850 but the prices fluctuate with supply.

Seventeen years ago, more than one-half the world’s liquid-crystal display screens were made using REC’s silane gas, a compound of silicon and hydrogen distilled from metallurgic-grade silicon that is more than 99% pure.

Polysilicon is used in a most electronic devices, including smartphones and computers. It enables the tiny, complex-integrated circuits that power those devices.

REC Silicon shut down polysilicon production in Moses Lake in 2019, but announced in 2022 it would be reopening. According to a previous report in the Columbia Basin Herald, the restart was the result of an agreement with Hanwa Solutions, a solar panel maker in South Korea.

Hanwa Solutions purchased about 21% of REC Silicon in early 2022.

REC Silicon restarted the polysilicon production last September, but the company could no longer meet the quality specifications that customers required. It tried making changes to the finishing and handling systems to no avail.

On Dec. 17, the company received an unsuccessful qualification test and the customer informed the company that it could no longer wait for the polysilicon deliveries at the needed volumes, according to a company news release.

“There are currently no other customers in the USA and limited customers out of China, all of which are not options at this time due to product quality, market and contract conditions and the timing of potential needs,” the release said.

The company halted polysilicon production in Butte last February.

Gas orders remain

Despite the closure of polysilicon production, REC signed contracts last year to provide silane gas to an emerging technology company also located in Moses Lake called Sila Nanotechnology.

The Alameda, California-based company is renovating a 600,000 -square-foot factory in Moses Lake with plans to create as many as 500 new jobs to manufacture silicon anodes to be used in lithium-ion batteries.

The Sila plant got partial funding from a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Sila, which has contracts to supply Mercedes-Benz and battery-maker Panasonic Energy, expects to begin production in January 2026.

It’s not the only battery-related company with big plans.

Last year, Group14 Technologies, based in Woodinville, Washington, was awarded a $200 million grant – also from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – to build a silane gas plant down the street from Sila that should create about 150 jobs.

Sutton, of REC Silicon, said his company plans to honor the contract to produce silane gas for Sila Nanotechnology despite the complete shutdown of the Moses Lake plant.

“This means that, as of now, all silicon gas supply will come from the Butte facility,” Sutton wrote. “The equipment at Moses Lake will be maintained in a safe and recoverable mode … allowing the unit to restart with reasonable notice.

“Depending on the market conditions and customer demand, Moses Lake could be restarted to supply silicon gases if needed.”