“For Hoku and its majority shareholder Tianwei New Energy Holdings, things cannot be worse.”-Rober Dydo, CEO of Solar PV Investor

March 18, 2012, customers who have pre-paid for Hoku’s polysilicon are getting restless.  One buyer, Jinko Solar, has already reduced their original purchase contract of ten years down to eight.  And there’s rumors they want to reduce it even more.

Hoku also owes two other buyers, Hanwha Solar One and Solargiga.  In total the three customers already paid Hoku $140 million!

To make matters worse, Jinko Solar is the only Chinese customer that is not in trouble financially.  This means that Hanwha Solar One, and Solargiga, are more likely to cancel their contracts all together.

To top everything, Hoku Materials, in Pocatello, Idaho, is still not ready for production and the delays are only costing more money: “The current estimate for the cost of facility is now $600 million to complete Phase I of 2,500 metric ton (MT) of capacity. Phase II with the complete capacity of 4,000 MT will cost another $100 million to complete. All told the $700 million dollar price tag is 70.7% more than its previous estimate…“-Michael Lofing, CPA and market analyst

IDAHO’S HOKU MATERIALS LOSES $28 MILLION, BLAMES IDAHO POWER.