BY: Till Daldrup
EDITORS: Vikas Kumar, Sam Koppelman
Bloom Energy ($BE) has repeatedly denied that it relies on scandium from China, a rare earth element critical to the performance of its fuel cells. After Hunterbrook exposed its Chinese supply connections in July, Bloom rejected the findings and said its scandium supply chain could support production of up to 25 GW of fuel cells per year — without reliance on China.
New trade data reveals Bloom seems to have reopened a trade route of scandium-containing components from China to the United States. Strangely, the bills of lading that show these shipments are missing the names of the sender and recipient. But Hunterbrook was able to identify several clues pointing to Bloom.
Based on Hunterbrook Media’s reporting, at the time of publication Hunterbrook Capital is short $BE. Positions may change at any time. This article is not investment advice or any recommendation. See full disclosures on our website.
“Our supply is not dependent on China.”
So claimed Bloom in response to Hunterbrook Media’s July report on the company’s reliance on the People’s Republic for scandium.
Much of Hunterbrook’s evidence came from trade data, in which Bloom could be seen repeatedly importing scandium originating in China — sometimes through intermediaries in Thailand, Japan, and Korea.
One supply line Hunterbrook identified was dormant for nine months. And then, starting in September, nearly 20 metric tons of fuel cell components arrived in Oakland with two conspicuous blanks in their shipping records: who sent them and who was receiving them.
Other details were familiar. The route from Thailand. The description of the cargo. And a marking — “BE PALLET” — that appeared on earlier shipments explicitly addressed to Bloom Energy.
Together, those clues point to the return of a supply line carrying scandium-containing components from a Chinese manufacturer’s Thai subsidiary to Bloom.
By matching the cargo descriptions with a Thai container depot’s records, Hunterbrook was able to trace the deliveries back to the same supplier: Glory Winner, whose parent company is China’s Three Circle Group.
Three Circle has been identified as a “core supplier” for Bloom in Chinese media.
For more than a year, Glory Winner shipped ceramic electrolyte membranes, thin sheets that help fuel cells turn fuel into electricity, to Bloom. This component contains scandium, according to Bloom’s own patents, fuel cell experts, and a blog post the company published in July after Hunterbrook had reached out with questions about its scandium supply. The metal allows electricity to be produced more efficiently and lengthens the fuel cell’s lifespan.
It is crucial to Bloom’s growth ambitions connected to the rapid data center build-out in the U.S.
Hunterbrook reported in July that Glory Winner had shipped more than 154 metric tons of electrolyte membranes to Bloom via the Thailand channel between July 2024 and November 2025. Hunterbrook found no additional shipments along that route until September 2026, when, after a hiatus of more than nine months, shipments containing ceramic electrolyte membranes from Thailand began arriving in Oakland again. In September and October, 28 packages with almost 20 metric tons of these membranes reached the California port.
Bloom’s reactivation of this supply line indicates the company may not have as many other options to secure key materials for its fuel cells as its public announcements make it seem.
Bloom and Three Circle did not reply to requests for comment. Bloom also did not respond directly to requests for comment before previous Hunterbrook articles, instead addressing the reporting in a blog post and during the Q&A session of an earnings call.
TELLTALE MARKINGS
Hunterbrook reviewed the bills of lading for shipments of electrolyte membranes from Glory Winner to Bloom between November 2024 and November 2025. Each one contained the marking “BE PALLET,” apparently short for “Bloom Energy pallet,” followed by a numerical code.
The “BE PALLET” marking also appears on the September and October 2026 bills of lading, along with the exact same commodity description. Several records also carry the same import code for ceramics as the older shipments.
According to Hunterbrook’s review of trade data, all shipments between November 2024 and today that include the words “BE PALLET” on associated records and went to Oakland were ceramic electrolyte membranes. All of those shipments that include information about their ultimate recipient went to Bloom Energy.
One bill of lading for one of the September/October 2026 shipments also appears to show the redacted name of the shipment’s sender: “XXXXXXX WINNER (THAILAND) CO., LTD.” A Thai container depot’s tracking platform identifies the sender of the same shipment as Glory Winner.
These new electrolyte membrane shipments to Bloom come after a nine-month break in identifiable deliveries. By shipment weight, October 2026 was the biggest month since February 2025.
And a tracking platform operated by logistics company Expeditors shows more shipments from Thailand to Oakland are already on their way, according to a Hunterbrook review.
SHIPMENTS TRACE BACK TO CHINA
Chinese media reports and Three Circle’s public disclosures suggest that the scandium in Glory Winner’s electrolyte membranes is of Chinese origin, as Hunterbrook reported in July.
A diagram in Three Circle’s 2026 draft IPO prospectus for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange shows that the company’s China-based operation is supplying “raw materials and equipment” to Glory Winner. Elsewhere in the document, Three Circle says “the main raw materials are all sourced domestically,” referring to China.
Three Circle’s 2021 response to a Shenzhen Stock Exchange inquiry letter indicated that it established Glory Winner in 2019 to avoid U.S. tariffs on fuel cell separator plates.
“To mitigate the impact of the additional tariffs on fuel cell separator plates, the company consulted with relevant customers and implemented the following measures,” the document stated. “In July 2019, it established a new subsidiary, Glory Winner (Thailand) Co., Ltd., and relocated the fuel cell separator plates business to Thailand, assigning production and sales responsibilities to the new subsidiary.”
Three Circle has also shipped to Bloom through another related entity: Trade data shows Hong Kong Three Circle Electronic shipping “ceramic substrate for fuel cell application” directly to Bloom under its own name between 2024 and 2025.
Three Circle told investors in December 2025 that it “has established a long-term cooperative relationship with Bloom Energy and is its main supplier of fuel cell membrane sheets,” according to Chinese media.
The company, which listed in Hong Kong in July, did not name Bloom directly in its IPO prospectus. Instead, it said its largest customer in 2023, 2024, and 2025 was a “public company listed in the U.S. that mainly engages in development and production of reliable new energy products.” It also disclosed: “SOFC electrolyte sheets have been supplied to a leading North American fuel cell company.”
Bloom also displayed Three Circle’s logo on a logo wall at its supplier conference in May 2026.
The latest import documents show that this relationship between the two companies continues, not just in corporate disclosures, but in trade data as well.
AUTHOR
Till Daldrup is an investigative journalist who joined Hunterbrook from The Wall Street Journal, where he focused on open-source investigations and content verification. In 2023, he was part of a team of reporters who won a Gerald Loeb Award for an investigation that revealed how Russia is stealing grain from occupied parts of Ukraine. He has an M.A. in Journalism from New York University and a B.S. in Social Sciences from University of Cologne. He’s also an alum of the Cologne School of Journalism (Kölner Journalistenschule).
EDITORS
Vikas Kumar joined Hunterbrook from The Capitol Forum, where he led the corporate investigations team for a decade as a senior editor. He was previously an attorney at Gordon Feinblatt, a trial attorney for the Department of Justice, and a law clerk for a federal judge. He has a J.D. from University of Virginia School of Law and a bachelor’s from Emory University. Vikas is based in Maryland.
Sam Koppelman is a New York Times best-selling author who has written books with former United States Attorney General Eric Holder and former United States Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal. Sam has published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Time Magazine, and other outlets. He has a BA in Government from Harvard, where he was named a John Harvard Scholar and wrote op-eds like “Shut Down Harvard Football,” which he tells us were great for his social life. Sam is based in New York City.
GRAPHICS
Dan DeLorenzo is a creative director with 25 years reporting news through visuals. Since first joining a newsroom graphics department in 2001, he has built teams at Bloomberg News, Bridgewater Associates, and the United Nations, and published groundbreaking visual journalism at The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, The New York Times, and Business Insider. A passion for the craft has landed him at the helm of newsroom teams, on the ground in humanitarian emergencies, and at the epicenter of the world’s largest hedge fund. He runs DGFX Studio, a creative agency serving top organizations in media, finance, and civil society with data visualization, cartography, and strategic visual intelligence. He moonlights as a professional sailor working toward a USCG captain’s license and is a certified Pilates instructor.
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