O-I Glass to invest €95 million to upgrade plants in France

O-I Glass to invest €95 million to upgrade plants in France

O-I Glass is investing €95 million into two of its French glass packaging production facilities as part of its modernization programme and is in line with the recently updated ESG roadmap.

In Gironcourt, where the plant recently marked its 120th anniversary, €55 million will be invested in close cooperation with one of its key customers to rebuild a furnace and equip it with innovative GOAT technology (Gas Oxy Advanced Technology). This innovative approach – already successfully implemented last year at the O-I plant in Vayres (France) – uses a mix of gas and oxygen to heat the furnace. In combination with a newly installed heat recovery system to pre-heat raw materials and recycled glass, the new installation is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 18%.

In addition to the furnace upgrade, a production line at the plant will be modernized to further increase flexibility and capacity. An average of about 80% of the plant’s raw materials is comprised of scrap and locally recycled glass, underlining the circular and local nature of glass packaging.

The majority of the glass bottles produced in Gironcourt are supplied to customers by rail, reducing the number of trucks per week by about 250. The new expenditure will increase the total investment into the site to almost €120 million since 2019 when O-I established an all-new third furnace.

In Reims, O-I completed a €40 million investment for a major upgrade including the full renovation of one of the plant’s two furnaces and a production line, as well as the installation of all-new equipment. On top of multiple operational benefits, this also resulted in an overall energy reduction of about 5%.

In total, O-I has invested €90 million into the Reims site since 2019, when its other furnace was rebuilt—contributing to making it one of the most modern plants within O-I’s global footprint.

The Reims plant, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2023, is a model for O-I’s overall sustainability efforts. An average of ~90% of its raw material consists of cullet. The high cullet rate is a major contributor in reducing the plant’s CO₂ emissions by about 60% and fine particle emissions by about 80%. Since the 2019 investment, waste heat from glass packaging production has been recovered to be used in domestic homes in the local community.