In an exclusive interview with Glass International, Verallia CEO Patrice Lucas discusses the glass manufacturer's furnace investments in France and Brazil.

Verallia recently heated up its €57 million fully electric furnace at its glass production facility in Cognac, France.

At 180 tpd, the furnace is the largest all-electric furnace for the food packaging in the world.

Verallia CEO Patrice Lucas said scaling up the technology was essential to ensure the furnace remained competitive for the food and beverage industry.

“The technology is not totally brand-new, because it already exists in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry, but for food, it is the world premiere.”

Verallia partnered with industrial engineering group Fives for the project, which supplied its Prium E-Melt cold-top vertical melter.

The melter will provide a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to a traditional furnace, which is in line with the Verallia group’s plans to reduce its global emissions by 46% by 2030.

Mr Lucas said this decarbonisation target was the main motivation for Verallia choosing low-carbon electricity over other fuel sources.

“All the big industries will have to face this energy transition. The only way to decarbonise is to move to electricity. What is good for the glass industry is that we have a solution to move our processes to electricity.”

Verallia CEO Patrice Lucas. [Image credit: Julien Lutt]

Cognac furnace

The project started in March 2022, and the furnace came to life earlier this year. Two employees from Verallia were selected to be the godmother and godfather of the furnace, and had the honour of lighting it on March 18th, 2024.

Since then, Verallia has been ramping up production to achieve 180 tpd of flint glass bottles.

Mr Lucas said the furnace is currently at 150 tpd, and the first deliveries to customers are just starting.

“We are currently ramping up, and getting all the operational standards updated for efficient production. Then we’ll see the literature on that, and discuss how we could deploy the technology at our other plants to meet our 2030 CO2 reduction target.”

The official inauguration of the furnace will take place on September 10th. The event will be attended by Verallia’s customers and internal stakeholders, as well as local and national authorities.

“We are proud of the project, and our talented people. It’s important for us to pave the way forward for reducing CO2 emissions. This is a big milestone for the company."

Campo Bom furnace

Verallia is also constructing a 450 tpd heated-oxygen furnace, costing approximately €100 million, at its Campo Bom site in Brazil.

Mr Lucas said the launch of the furnace has been postponed to 2025 due to the heavy rains in the Porto Alegre region of Brazil.

Despite the delay, Mr Lucas said the project, which started in December 2022, was moving ahead as planned.

Verallia’s plant in Campo Bom, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. [Image credit: Fabiano Ferrari]

The furnace will produce three colours, flint, green and amber, and be powered with heated oxygen.

Mr Lucas described this technology as an “intermediate step” between a traditional furnace and Verallia’s vision to decarbonise.

“The furnace will use HeatOx technology, which has the big advantage of reducing the energy needed to melt the glass. By doing so, we will reduce our CO2 emissions by 20%.”

Full interview available in the July/August issue.