Good morning, gang.  The big news of the day on AGORACOM is out of HPQ Silicon.  For those of you new to the story, HPQ is in the process of converting its high purity quartz into solar grade silicon metal / high purity silcon metal. In short, rather than selling their quarts at $50/ton, they're goal is to process it up the value chain into several thousand dollars per ton. This would make the company a vertically integrated producer of high purity silicon metal and THAT is what excites me.

Solar grade requires hitting a purity level of 6N (99.9999%).  The company had already achieved 99.9% on its first round of testing and today announced it has now hit 4N (99.99%) in its second round of testing. According to the company, its all happening faster than expected and represents a very big milestone.

COMPANY QUOTE

Given the somewhat technical nature of the news, the best summary comes from the company's CEO. My excerpts are below:

"We have officially reached the 4N Milestone, and the technical team now can focus on the improvements to follow up the achievement of the 4N+ high grade silicon core. The PUREVAP™ QRR results once again exceeded our expectations at this early stage of development testing .... and this result has come earlier than expected.

In addition, production of 99.99+% Si using 98.14% SiO2 feed speaks volumes about the economic opportunities that the PUREVAP™ QRR represents for HPQ-Silicon and its numerous high grade quartz deposits, in our objective of becoming vertically integrated" .... our goal of making Solar Grade Silicon gets closer to becoming a reality."

3RD PARTY QUOTE - TURN CHEAP FEEDSTOCK INTO HIGH VALUE PRODUCT

All of you know that I am a very big fan of 3rd party validation. In other words, we all think our baby is the most beautiful one in the world, so tell me who else agrees with you.

In this case, the company's technological partner had this to say:

"These results are significant as the prevailing proposition suggests that the quartz purity level required to make high purity silicon metal is over 99.5%(2)" said P. Peter Pascali, President and CEO of PyroGenesis. "The PUREVAP™ has proven that to no longer be the case. We have demonstrated that the process can produce high purity silicon metal from significantly lower purity quartz as feedstock. The implications of this are enormous when considering the potential commercial applications of the process. Conceivably, we can now take a cheap and abundant low purity quartz feedstock and transform it into a high value end product."

CONCLUSION

Today's press release appears to be significant for two major reasons:

1. The company has now achieved 99.99%+ purity and the second round of testing is nowhere near completion
2. The 99.99%+ was achieved with significantly lower feedstock, which has obvious enormous implications

Put HPQ Silicon on your radar and read today's press release in its entirety.

DISCLAIMER

Yes, HPQ Silicon is a sponsor of AGORACOM but the numbers don't lie.  Nonetheless, assume I am horribly conflicted and do all of your own due diligence + speak with your financial advisor, spouse and anyone else necessary before deciding to become an investor.