The Country Nobody Named Ships Half Your Silicon
Four more silicon metal orders were continued last Thursday, closing out eleven months in which eight origins moved under duty. Brazil was in the last case, won it in 2018, and was left out of this one. It now supplies 56 percent of the US import book, and every origin under order combined adds up to less than half of what Brazil ships alone.
The International Trade Commission filed a determination on August 31 that kept four silicon metal orders alive for another five years. It reached the Federal Register last Thursday and ran to a page and a half.
That page closes out the busiest year US silicon metal has had at Commerce since the Reagan administration was writing the rules.
Since April, orders have landed on Angola, Laos, Australia and Norway. Thursday's notice continued the orders on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Malaysia and Kazakhstan.
Those are eight origins in eleven months, and the standing China order makes nine, on the chemical-grade silicon that feeds every siloxane and every aluminum alloy you buy.
"If eight origins are now walled off, who is actually still shipping the tonnes?"
Two countries, and neither one was in the case (chart below).
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