The Guangzhou Futures Exchange will introduce polysilicon futures and options to provide more risk management tools for price fluctuations to the Chinese photovoltaic industry.

Polysilicon futures and options will be listed on Dec. 26 and Dec. 27, respectively, becoming the third product after industrial silicon and lithium carbonate to join the GFEX, the bourse announced on Dec. 13.

The first batch of seven polysilicon futures and related options to be listed on the GFEX will have minimum trading volumes of three tons. The minimum change price for such futures will be CNY5 (69 US cents) per ton, while that for options will be CNY1 per ton.

As industrial silicon futures and options have run smoothly for nearly two years, launching polysilicon products will provide more accurate and suitable futures tools to the solar industry supply chain, thus helping consolidate the competitive advantages of China in the global PV industry, an industry insider told Yicai.

Polysilicon is the main raw material for solar cells and chip substrates. The global production of polysilicon reached 1.6 million tons last year, with China contributing 92 percent of the total, according to data from the Silicon Industry of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association.

Polysilicon prices in China have sharply fluctuated in recent years due to imbalances between supply and demand, ranging 227 percent in 2021, 63 percent in 2022, and 280 percent last year. So far this year, they have fallen about 40 percent to around CNY40,000 (USD5,500) per ton.

The GFEX was founded in 2021 as China's fifth futures exchange, with a focus on the green economy. The futures and options of industrial silicon and lithium carbonate started trading in December 2022 and July last year, respectively.

（Picture: Veer）