Saudi Advanced Industries Company (SAIC) said that its glass manufacturing subsidiary – Obeikan Glass Company – has begun operations of its glass furnace, which will require 4-5 weeks to reach maximum…
Saudi Advanced Industries Company (SAIC) said that its glass manufacturing subsidiary – Obeikan Glass Company – has begun operations of its glass furnace, which will require 4-5 weeks to reach maximum heat. Once reached, the company will then start producing float glass within 2-3 weeks as fine tuning of the process takes place. The glass plant is located at Yanbu el Bahr, the industrial and port city in Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea coast in Medina Province, about 350km north of Jeddah. When fully operational, the plant will be the largest in the region, producing 800 tonnes per day of clear and tinted glass and, with provisions for on-line coatings, will be the most modern of its kind in the Gulf countries thanks to Fives Stein technology. Growth in construction means growth in building products (which account for 80-85% of the float glass market) magnified by an architectural and engineering trend towards greater use of glass in building faades, for reasons involving not only design trends but also environmental protection says Derek Burston, event manager, Gulf Glass 2011 (7-9 March, ADNEC, Abu Dhabi, UAE). Such developments make it all the more important for the entire region to find a place where they can gather and see what technological and material developments there are, in order to keep the industry developing.