• The enterprise for the production of construction glass in Kairakum (Sughd, Tajikistan) has launched a new line for production of one-liter and two-liter glass jars. Daily capacity of the new production line will be 20 thousand containers. Currently, the company produces 10,000 units of one-liter glass jars and two-liter per day.

• AGY (Aiken, S.C., US) announced May 9 that it has increased production output of its “S-2 Glass” fiber reinforcements by 20 percent with the capability to further increase its output as market demands dictate. The company says this expansion enables AGY to meet growth in both the aerospace and industrial markets for high-performance glass fibers used for composite reinforcement.

• Nippon Electric Glass Co. says it will set up a subsidiary in South Korea to make and sell glass for flat-panel displays. The company says it aims to swiftly respond to clients’ needs by establishing a base handling everything from manufacturing to sales in South Korea, where there is a heavy concentration of production facilities for large panel makers, such as Samsung Electronics Co.

• The NSG Group says it intends to keep one of the two furnaces of its Gladbeck float plant in Germany out of operation until at least the end of calendar year 2012. The decision was taken as a consequence of demand reduction across Europe; production at the Gladbeck float line was interrupted in mid-April for a planned cold repair.

• Luoyang Float Glass Group of China announced its wholly owned subsidiary Longhao Glass shut down a float glass production line on May 15. The production line will be cold-repaired. This production line has been running well over six years, exceeding the designed furnace life.

• Cornelius Brennand Group will open a float glass plant in northeastern Brazil through its subsidiary Companhia Brasileira de Vidros Planos. The R$550 million (about $310 million) plant will begin operation in the second half of 2013.

• RHI-AG invested roughly EUR 2 million in expanding production capacity at the plant in Trieben, Austria. The investment covers a new 2 kiloton press and a grinder for bricks; with this investment, the production capacity will be increased by 15p percent to 63,000 tons per year of refractories for the nonferrous metals industry like copper, aluminum or zinc.

• Corhart Refractories (Buckhannon, W.Va., US), a Saint-Gobain subsidiary, has announced to be laying off 69 workers starting July 6; this company makes ceramic products used primarily in glass and steel furnaces. The layoffs are specified “not permanent.”

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• Allied Glass has agreed a deal to take additional space at a location in Leeds, UK as demand for its products increases. The company recently announced that it expects 2012 sales to exceed £100 million; its performance was being driven by rising demand for spirits in emerging markets such as China, India, Russia and South America.

• Sisecam has announced that its 2011 profits grew by 53% as it continued to expand abroad; according to reports, the company currently holds 3% of the global glass demand with its production, which has reached $3.7 billion.

• Glass manufacturer Zimbabwe Glass Industries (Zimglass), has reportedly failed to reopen as scheduled in April 2012, as the furnace is still to be completed. The company, which has failed to open on two previous occasions, is now expected to resume operations on June 1, 2012.

• Nippon Sheet Glass Co. said it slid into a net loss last fiscal year, and warned of deeper trouble ahead, soaking up restructuring costs to offset the impact of Europe’s economic weakness on its core construction and auto-glass operations.

• Germany’s RHI AG, a leading refractory manufacturer, may acquire Delhi-based Orient Refractories in a transaction valued at about Rs 600 crore, two people close to the development said. The deal is likely to be signed in the second week of June.

• The global market for zirconium is forecasted to reach 2.6 million metric tons by the year 2017. A spurt in the global nuclear energy sector will lead to high demand for zirconium and simultaneous increase in production capacities worldwide.

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(Note: the most recent Ceramic Tech Today email—May 15, 2012—accidentally contained an older link that directs readers to this page. For readers who want to go to P. Carlo Ratto’s most recent “News from the glass and refractory worlds, please click here.)

• According to reports, Asahi Glass is considering expanding a factory it has just started building in Brazil, in order to double the facility’s planned output of automotive glass.

• Martin Marietta Magnesia Specialties LLC announced recently it would add a sixth kiln at its dolomitic lime production facility in Woodville.

• A silicon metal smelter will be setup in Abu Dhabi’s newest industrial zone KIZAD, which will supply high grade silicon to aluminium smelters in the region. The plant operated by Al Braik Investments is estimated to cost around Dh638 million.

• Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan hopes to seal the sale of four alumina plants by the end of September; at the end of March, Rio Tinto had received a binding offer from private equity group HIG for its three specialty alumina plants in France and one in Germany and would respond to the offer after consulting unions.

• Kerneos, a world leader in calcium aluminates, is pleased to announce that it has acquired a 54% stake in the capital of the Greek company Elmin, the leading European exporter of monohydrate bauxite.

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• Electrical Engineering Solutions has announced to be currently working on a challenging furnace rebuild appointment for Consol Glass, one of the largest glass manufacturers in Africa. Tthe rebuild is at Consol’s Bellville plant. The existing B4 furnace produces approximately 285 tons per day, and the rebuilt B4 furnace will increase capacity to 320 tons per day.

• PPG Industries has announced that it will continue to be patient with its glass business but, according to chair and chief executive officer Charles Bunch, it is not ruling out a sale. The company’s glass segment consists of glass fiber and flat glass production.

• According to reports, quick action by firefighters and efficient response by local utilities prevented a more serious outcome after a molten glass spill at Johns Manville’s Richmond, Va, facility in the US on April 20, 2012.

• Seville Industries, of Italy, TX, is in the process of buying a western Pennsylvania glass plant that shut down nearly two years ago, with plans to refurbish and re-sell the operation. Seville’s business involves liquidating manufacturing facilities, like the Owens-Illinois plant that closed in July 2010 in Clarion, Pa., about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

• Xinyi Glass Holdings Ltd. announced that it held a ceremony for igniting the furnace, for trial run, of its second high-quality float glass production line at its complex in the Wuqing Development Zone in Tianjin, China. With a daily melting capacity of 600 tons, the line is expected to commence its production by the end of May.

• Austria’s RHI AG has submitted a bid for Serbian state-owned basic materials manufacturer Magnohrom. RHI had planned to complete the acquisition in the first half of 2012, and is expected to spend €65 million on the deal.

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• Swicorp, a private equity firm, has announced the sale of a 20% stake in Ghani Glass, held by Joussour Holding Company. JHC is a private equity investment vehicle managed by Swicorp that invests in energy and energy-intensive industries. Established in 1993, Ghani Glass is one of the largest glass manufacturers in Pakistan.

• On April 13, the deputy prime minister of the Republic of Dagestan visited the JSC Kaspiysk float glass plant located in Kumtorkalinsky district of the republic. The factory is located in the village of Tube in an area rich in deposits of quartz sand, which can later become the raw material for glass production.

• The number of cathode ray tubes entering the waste stream is yet to peak in Europe, while demand for the leaded glass they contain has evaporated. A small firm in Manchester, England, — Nulife Glass — has developed a technology combining heat and chemistry to extract lead and clean glass.

• Emhart Glass has developed the Multi Gob Weight System, which allows, based on Emhart Glass statement, improved flexibility of glass container production. The new system controls both the feeder and the shear, giving a choice of gob weight and shape; as a result, each section of a forming machine (whether IS, AIS, NIS or BIS) can produce an item of individual weight and shape.

• Craig Naylor, the American chief executive of Nippon Sheet Glass Co., resigned over “fundamental disagreements” on strategy with the board of directors, becoming the second foreign CEO to abruptly step down from Japan’s second-largest glassmaker in three years.

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