Siberian Glass
Sibirskoe Steklo completes €20 million furnace expansion Siberian container glass manufacturer Sibirskoe Steklo recently completed the expansion of Furnace No1 at its Novosibirsk, Russian facility. Its CEO, Pavel Bobosik, discusses the investment as well as market conditions in the region.
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Why did you decide to make this investment? There were two main reasons. The furnace was already working for 11 years (construction started in 2007) and another reason was to increase overall efficiency by extending the furnace, modernising it and adding another feeder with two new forming machines. This way we will get an energy efficient glass melting furnace with a daily pull between 375 tonnes up to 410 tonnes (compared to the previous 255 daily pull) with five forming instead of three ten section machines. How big is the new furnace and how many bottles do you anticipate to supply once it is fully ignited? As said before, the pull was significantly increased, but with 130m2 and very good boosting from FIC we can manoeuvre with the capacity according to the needs of the market and the needs of our key customers. We are ready to change colour through the year from amber to green and to flint. Actually the previous condition of this furnace (Furnace No.1) did not allow us to do that. We do have two other furnaces operating in flint glass only, but the large one is having colouring in the feeder. It helps us to serve the luxury bottle market to local customers. Our total daily melting capacity went from 320 tonnes in 2013 to 620 daily tonnes last year through a serious of investments and adding lines to existing furnaces. We have now reached a daily capacity of at least 780 tonnes of bottles with 12 glass forming machines. Can you tell me more about your company? Our company is split from the previously known Ecran factory. In the framework of restructuring we split the assets. Ecran is today a management company on the Industrial park – a brownfield
territory with many industrial and nonindustrial tenants, which is not needed for Sibirskoe Steklo and glass bottle manufacturing. Both companies belong to the industrial holding RATM. The company started to produce only flint glass on very old machines during the 1990s for local vodka manufacturers mostly in Western Siberia and for local processors of vegetable and fruit juices they also produced simple jars. After 2000 the number of furnaces was extended and around 2006 the first new machines from the Czech company
Sklostroj were installed. After good development of the market, in 2007 it was decided to build up a new largest furnace (current No.1) for production of amber glass with three ten-section double gob new machines from Sklostroj. The booming market with beer and demand for amber BB bottles was stopped with the global financial crises in 2009 and consequent decline of purchasing power and demand for beer in Russia. Anyway, at the end of 2009 was decided to finish the almost ready made project and in spring 2010 the new
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