The furnaces will be rebuilt n 2019 and 2021 to accept natural gas which will be piped to Derrylin in a scheme called the Gas to the West initiative, reports the Impartial Reporter.
The £250 million gas project will see the construction of approximately 200km of pipeline linking Coalisland, Cookstown, Derrylin, Dungannon, Enniskillen, Magherafelt, Omagh and Strabane to the existing gas network.
“Bringing gas in will help environmentally, it will help with our emissions and it also takes three large road tankers [of oil] off the road per day. But it means we will produce less glass because oil is more efficient at melting glass,” Adrian Curry, said
The complication is that we have to design our furnaces differently. We’ve worked very closely with Arlene Foster and her team a number of years ago and more recently with the gas providers to get to a point where everyone is certain this is going to happen because it does influence heavily on the decisions we make,” he added.
Full interview with Mr Curry at Impartial Reporter’s website:
http://www.impartialreporter.com/news/15481256.Business__Encirc_raises_a_glass_to___50m_investment_in_new_furnaces/