French glass maker closes float furnace

The smallest of the furnaces at AGC Boussois had been closed this week. B1 has a capacity of 650 tpd was built only in 2008. It was now finally stopped after a period of production slowdowns and a stopover for a hot repair two months ago.   

Its larger brother B2, built in 1989 and overhauled in 2009 has a capacity of 780 tpd and is still far from operating at full capacity, which is still one of the results of the big market shut-down in 2008.

One of its competitors, Saint-Gobain has stopped its production in Italy and Portugal and has idled its second furnace in Auvelais (Belgium) where threehundred people are working. Currently it is estimated that about 1,5-2 million tons of glass are stored in Europe and waiting for processing.