The Duralex glassworks announces that it will put its production on standby this winter to save energy

Suffocated by the rise in energy prices, the famous Duralex glassworks announced on Thursday 1^er September, that it was going to put its oven on standby for a minimum of four months, starting in November, and place all of its employees on partial unemployment to save energy and preserve its finances.

The company said in a statement that it was facing “for several months, very unfavorable economic financial production conditions, solely linked to the price of energy”which exploded after Russia invaded Ukraine. “Producing at the daily energy rate would generate unsustainable losses. Limiting our energy consumption in the coming period therefore allows us to preserve the activity and employment of Duralex”said the president of the company, José-Luis Llacuna, quoted in the text.

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Resumption of production in the second quarter of 2023

Production at the historic Duralex factory, located in La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin (Loiret), should only resume in the second quarter of 2023, the company having a “tariff coverage already contracted on electricity”. The tempered glass specialist claims to have sufficient stock to continue ” normally “ its commercial activity during the standby of its oven, which also responds to calls from the government to limit industrial energy consumption during the winter.

Glasses from school canteens, design objects from the MoMA store in New York, whiskey containers for 007 in Sky Fall : Duralex creations are known throughout the world and the company observes “growing sales”according to its press release.

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The famous glassworks had been bought in extremis in January 2021, after being placed in receivership a few months earlier by International Cookware (Pyrex), which became La Maison française du verre at the start of the year. Created in 1945 by Saint-Gobain, the glass factory in the suburbs of Orléans employs 250 people and in 2021 achieved a turnover of 23.4 million euros.

The World with AFP