16 minute read
Editor’s Comment International news
GREG MORRIS, EDITOR
Huge opportunity for glass sectors
So this is it, 2022, the International Year of Glass.
What an opportunity for the industry to highlight its credentials in front of a global audience.
Over the course of the next 12 months, starting from the opening ceremony in Geneva to the closing celebration in Japan in December, glass will be under the spotlight. A variety of celebrations and activities are planned all around the globe to bring glass to the public eye.
The glass industry is made up of a huge amount of disparate sectors – glass packaging, glass architecture, glass art and speciality glass to name a few – and the year of glass is an opportunity to bring all these elements together under one banner.
Themes such as sustainability and digitalisation have been common in glass for several years now.
This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity provides a chance to show the rest of the world how forward thinking and dynamic the industry can be. Without glass there would be no smartphones for example, something so ubiquitous in all our lives. Highlighting examples such as this to those outside the indistry could provide a boon to the whole sector for years to come. The IYOG website lists several of the actvites taking place and encourages as many events as possible to be listed. Take a moment to view and, if possible, to participate. A successful year of glass could mean that glass finally takes its place within the mainstream of public consiousness. FRONT COVER IMAGE: www.sorg.de
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O-I to sell Cristar tableware business to Nadir Figueiredo
O-I Glass is to sell its Cristar TableTop subsidiary to Brazilian tableware group Nadir Figueiredo for $95 million.
Cristar owns a tableware manufacturing plant in Buga, Colombia, that exports tableware to 40 countries and generated $14.6 million of EBITDA to the 12 months ended September 30, 2021.
The sale is expected to close during the first half of 2022.
Andres Lopez, CEO, said: “We are deploying proceeds from the sale of non-core assets to help fund our expansion plan, leveraging our exciting new MAGMA solution, that includes investment with attractive returns.”
Glass manufacturing facility set to be built in Canada
Canadian Premium Sand (CPS) is set to construct a glass manufacturing facility in Selkirk, Canada.
CPS said the solar glass manufacturing facility will be the first of its kind in North America and will provide around 300 jobs in the area once the facility is operating.
Currently, all solar panels manufactured in North America using patterned solar glass are made with glass imported from China and other Asia Pacific countries.
CPS chose Selkirk due to the proximity to a silica sand quarry, which is around 160 km north of Selkirk.
Leroux said the company looked at several options for where to set up the plant, but determined Manitoba, and Selkirk were the perfect fit.
There is also a supply of natural gas in the area, he said.
Verallia France has unveiled plans to build two 100% electric furnaces at its Cognac, France glass manufacturing facility.
The two furnaces will replace the fossil fuel fired furnace No. 2 nearing the end of its campaign life.
The total production capacity will replace that of the old furnace.
The Verallia site in Châteaubernard would become the first site in Europe and within the group to produce glass packaging for the food and beverage market with 100% electric furnaces.
This would implement environmental commitments with a nearly 50% reduced carbon footprint of the containers produced.
Olivier Rousseau, the CEO of Verallia France said: “I am pleased to have announced this excellent news as a priority to the trade unions and employees of our Cognac site, which was particularly impacted by our transformation project last year.
“This electric furnace technology has never been implemented in France or even in Europe for food packaging glass.”
Ardagh Group set to acquire South Africa’s Consol Glass
Ardagh Group is to buy South African glass container manufacturer Consol Glass for ZAR10.1 billion ($635 million).
Headquartered in Johannesburg and founded in 1946, Consol operates four glass production facilities.
It serves international, regional and domestic customers, principally in the beer, wine, spirits, food and non-alcoholic beverage sectors.
In the year to June 30, 2021, Consol reported consolidated revenues of ZAR9.0 billion ($566 million).
South Africa represented approximately 90% of revenues, with the balance represented by smaller production facilities in Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Glass consumption in Consol’s markets is projected to continue to increase, driven by long-term trends, including population growth, rising income levels and shifts to premium one-way sustainable glass packaging.
The enterprise value of the transaction represents a multiple of approximately 6.6 times LTM Adjusted EBITDA to September 30, 2021.
Ardagh expects to finance the acquisition through a combination of its own cash resources and the assumption of ZAR5.7 billion ($358 million) existing net debt at Consol.
Completion of the acquisition is expected in the second quarter of 2022.
Ardagh Chairman, Paul Coulson, said: “Consol is a market leader in the region, with great relationships across a diversified domestic and multinational customer base.
“Virtually all of Consol’s multinational customers are also customers of Ardagh. We look forward to welcoming Consol to the Ardagh family and to investing in the longterm growth of the African market, driven by consumer trends and rising sustainability awareness.”
Bruce MacRobert, Chairman of Consol, said: “The Consol team has built a great business, with an established reputation for delivering quality products to a growing customer base.
“Ardagh’s long-term presence in, and commitment to, glass packaging, makes it the ideal owner to continue this progress.”
NEWS IN BRIEF
Fenzi to acquire Johnson Matthey business
Italian chemical specialist Fenzi will acquire Johnson Matthey’s (JM) Advanced Glass Technologies (AGT) business.
AGT provides glass enamels and precious metal pastes globally, focusing on the automotive sector in particular.
Fenzi’s CEO, Alessandro Fenzi, said: “AGT’s leadership in glass enamels for the automotive and industrial sectors fits perfectly with our strategy to be the largest and most complete partner for the glass industry.
The acquisition is expected to close in spring 2022.
Argentine container glass factory
A long awaited glass manufacturing facility has been given a loan to ensure it starts production.
Argentina’s Vidrios Riojanos, a glass producer owned by the government of La Rioja province in Argentina, has received a federal government loan of ARS 900mn (€7.78million, US$ 9million) to build a wine glass bottles factory capable of 100,000 units per day.
The facility is expected to begin production operations in August 2022. It will manufacture green and flint bottles and will help meet the shortfall in wine bottles.
The facility is expected to have a 45/tonne day furnace as well as two production lines. The project was first suggested in 2015 but ran out of funding until now.
Stevanato expansion
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Stevanato Group is to expand its headquarters.
The expansion of its headquarters in Piombino Dese, Italy would advance operations and growth of the company. The 6,750m2 facility is expected to support the optimisation of its industrial footprint, with about 2,500m2 dedicated to increasing the production of high-value products.
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Verallia is to build a manufacturing furnace at its Pescia plant in Tuscany, Italy.
The furnace, called Furnace 83, is the 12th for the group in Italy and will give new impetus to the Tuscan plant in the province of Pistoia from 2024.
CEO Michel Giannuzzi announced the green light for the construction of a new furnace in October. The choice was made for the southernmost plant in Italy, one of six Italian plants of the group.
Marco Ravasi, CEO of Verallia Italia, said: “With this latest furnace, our group has invested, in the Italian market alone, an amount exceeding €300 million.
“As I have already said on the occasion of the lighting of the new furnace in the Borgo Mantovano plant, we believe we have the moral duty to support the industrial relaunch of the country, actively accompanying the relaunch of food and beverages made in Italy.
“For this reason we have chosen to invest on the Tuscan pole, to strengthen the presence in central Italy and be able to better serve the customers in the south of the country, where in recent months a storage warehouse started operations.
“The new furnace,” continued Ravasi, “will be characterised by the adoption of the best technologies, which will allow us to have greater production flexibility, being able to quickly change colour and format, and increasingly reduce emissions.”
This is the direction the company continues to follow on its ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance criteria) roadmap, summarised by the corporate purpose defined in 2020: ‘Rethinking glass to build a sustainable future.’
The most challenging objective, considering the industrial size of the group, is to reduce CO2 emissions by 46% by 2030 and to pursue carbon neutrality by 2050.
Contractor appointed to deliver Glass Futures development
Network Space Developments (NSD) has appointed Bowmer + Kirkland to build the £54 million Glass Futures development at Saints Retail Park in St Helens, UK.
Remediation and preparatory works will be completed shortly and in January 2022, Bowmer + Kirkland will start construction of the transformational global glass research and innovation facility.
The 165,000 sq ft scheme is expected to complete in January 2023, ready for fitout.
The facility has been prelet to St Helens Borough Council on a 15 year headlease and will be sublet to Glass Futures, which will occupy and manage the building.
It will deliver industry and government backed research and development projects focused on decarbonising glass production.
It will also provide a platform for the industry to access an experimental scale furnace to test and run trials for implementation at commercial scale on a line, both collaboratively and individually.
The building has been presold by NSD to global investor Standard Life Investments Property Income Trust to secure forward funding and conclude a viable delivery strategy.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Sorg and Wiegand-Glas celebrate batch pre-heating success
Sorg and Wiegand-Glas have celebrated 10 years of trouble-free operation of a batch pre-heater at WiegandGlas’ Steinbach, Germany site.
Sorg delivered 10 years of operation with only routine maintenance work required, before the preheater was shut down and inspected in March 2021 prior to the planned reconstruction of furnace No. 1. The inspection concluded only minor wear on the heat exchangers and screws, confi rming Sorg’s structural and technical design of its batch preheater.
The preheater was completely cleaned and worn parts were replaced.
The exhaust gas routing was optimised based on experience of 10 years of operation and further improvements were made to the batch supply, which was modifi ed by EME to further minimise the wear.
Horn Glass to complete Stölzle Oberglas repair
Horn Glass Industries will complete a repair of Stölzle Oberglas’s furnace 02 at its Köfl ach, Austria glass production site.
A cold performance test was carried out, while heatup of the 270t/day furnace took place on 3 December, according to the schedule.
GTS unveils website
Glass Technology Services has launched its new website.
Re-designed by local web developers Castus, the new website highlights the personal service the Sheffi eld, UK fi rm is known for while also creating a content hub showcasing the in-depth knowledge that its experts posses on the glass industry and the wider supply chain.
The website offers credible resources, and identifi es the range of sectors the company serves, such as the food and drink and pharmaceutical industries.
Top 10 stories in the news
Our most popular news over the past month, as determined by our website traffi c. All full stories can be found on our website.
� 1. Verallia unveils electric furnace glassmaking plan � 2. Glass manufacturing facility to be built in Canada � 3. Argentina’s Vidrios Riojanos to construct glass manufacturing facility � 4. Verallia to build Italian glass packaging furnace � 5. O-I to sell Cristar business to Nadir Figueiredo � 6. Vetropack appoints Zippe for its greenfi eld Italian facility � 7. Encirc plots £75 million distribution ‘mega hub’ � 8. Vidrio Formas selects Heye’s inspection machine � 9. Horn Glass to complete Stölzle Oberglas furnace repair � 10. Gerresheimer secures €10 million environmental grant
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Mexican glass manufacturer, Vidrio Formas has successfully installed Heye International’s latest SmartLine 2, including Ranger 2 check inspection equipment to deliver high performance at its new production site in Lerma.
Developed in Germany as an inspection and sorting machine for the global hollow glass community, the SmartLine 2 device incorporates Heye’s latest cold end equipment innovations.
These include a high speed outfeed belt, multi servo drives, high precision check detection and multi-point, non-contact thickness detection.
The equipment is required to service an expansion of production capacities at Vidrio Formas, which has recently opened a second glass packaging facility with a new furnace and two additional production lines.
High performance inspection, a reduction of spare parts inventories, reduced operating costs and the Smartline’s 2 digitisation capabilities were essential elements in Vidrio Formas’s purchasing decision. The SmartLine 2 was manufactured entirely at Heye’s Nienburg factory in Germany.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, users were trained by Heye personnel on site in Mexico.
The customer commissioned the machines supported remotely by Heye staff.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Grenzebach integration
Grenzebach has fully integrated CNUD EFCO into its float glass technology business.
The latest step in the integration took place on January 1 when CNUD was fully integrated into the Grenzebach group. It means customers will have only one contractual partner from this date - Grenzebach.
The current company name, Cnud Efco Operations, will also be changed to Grenzebach Romania while a capacity expansion is being planned at the site in Iasi, Romania where a production hall will be built in 2022.
Egbert Wenninger, Grenzebach CCO said: “The scope of services and the proven expertise will not change; the contact persons will also remain the same.”
Gerresheimer’s €10 million ‘green’ grant
Gerresheimer has secured a €9.9 million environmental grant to support its Lohr, Germany facility.
The grant, from the federal government’s Environmental Innovation Program (UIP) will help support the site on its journey to CO2 neutrality.
Gerresheimer wants to save 40% of its CO2 emissions from 2023 - which corresponds to around 22,000 tons of CO2 per year.
This should succeed with a new type of lowcarbon-emission-oxygen melting tank, which could be implemented as early as 2023.
EME continues partnership with Bastürk Cam
Turkish glass packaging manufacturer Bastürk Cam has commissioned EME to deliver equipment for its second furnace (B) with a capacity of 500 tonnes/day.
EME will build a glass cullet return system and batch transport system for the manufacturer’s facility in Malatya, Turkey.
EME also built the batch plant and cullet return system for furnace A in 2018.
Encirc plots £75 million distribution ‘mega hub’
UK glass bottle manufacturer and filler Encirc plans to build a national distribution hub for the UK and European drinks industry.
It is anticipated the fully automated ‘mega hub’ will be built within the next three years and will mark a step forward in the evolution of glass packaging supply chains in the UK.
While the exact location is yet to be confirmed, the hub will have around 170,000 pallet storage spaces for customers’ bottles filled at Encirc’s Cheshire plant, as well as others which have been filled elsewhere, and imported to the UK.
Encirc’s parent company, Vidrala, is planning to invest around £75 million in the hub, which will feature robotic case picking, with the prepared pallets able to be delivered directly to retailers across the UK and Europe.
By going straight to retail and reducing the reliance on regional distribution centres, the hub is set to reduce lorry movements nationwide and achieve carbon savings across supply chains in the UK.
The hub will complement Encirc’s existing automated warehouse in Elton, UK which is one of the largest of its kind in Europe with more than 250,000 pallet spaces.
Adrian Curry, Managing Director at Encirc, said: “Our new national distribution hub will represent the evolution of drink supply chains in the UK and Europe.
“This will be a huge leap forward for how the UK drinks industry imports and distributes key brands.
Encirc recently declared its intention to increase its wine filling capacity by more than 75 million litres per year, while also stating it plan to decarbonise its furnaces by beginning to use sustainable fuels, such as hydrogen, in its melting process.
These plans form an integral part of developments which will create more than 200 new jobs at Encirc over a number of years.
Forglass opens engineering centre
Forglass has opened a glass engineering centre in Katowice, Poland.
It is the new home for a team of engineers, who design technological lines for glass producers across Europe.
The centre also houses an R&D department, which develops concepts to meet the industry’s expectations for the 21st century.
Forglass works with nearby scientific institutions, laboratories and universities to ensure its machines and solutions are of the highest standard and quality.
The core staff for the engineering centre came from the design office, which had been operating in Katowice for several years.
The centre is located in a recreational area, surrounded by nature, right next to the Three Ponds Valley, and has been specially selected to attract, inspire and motivate people who work there.
Zippe Industrieanlagen has received an order from the Swiss Vetropack Group for a batch plant and two cullet return systems at the Boffalora project, Milan, Italy.
A modern glass factory is to be constructed which will replace the existing plant in Trezzano in 2023.
The batch plant is designed for the supply of two melting furnaces. The raw material weighing is realised by seven scales.
Three high duty pan mixers are used for mixing technology. The cullet addition will be realised with nine dosing belt scales.
Furthermore, two cullet return systems are also included in the supply. They are equipped with proven Zippe scraping and crushing technology.
The project will be conducted on a turnkey basis. The supply comprises the steel and silo construction, the equipment and the control system.
