Gürsel Usta, CEO of Ciner Group: We will manufacture 5,4 million tonnes in the USA together with our partner Şişecam

In an interview with Bloomberght, Gürsel Usta, CEO of Ciner Group, talked about new investment plans for the coming period of time.

Gürsel Usta, the CEO of Ciner Group and the Chairman of the Executive Board of Kazan Soda, talked about the glass company in Turkey in an on-air interview with Bloomberght Television.

Stating that hygiene is of crucial importance for the company during the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr. Usta also mentioned that they did not have any issues thereabout thanks to makingalready strict rules even stricter on that front.

Saying that they were manufacturing soda package for 60% of Turkey’s market, and that their market share was 22%, Mr. Usta also expressed that even though the glass packages were healthier compared with other materials, during the pandemic there was a significant increase in soda production thanks to minerals in it. “The soda saw a 30% increase in production, whereas the increase sector by sector was usually approximately 20%. Part of it was due to export. To sum up, he said, the glass packaging sector benefited from the pandemic.”

He gave the following remarks on glass lightening technology;

“Our glass packaging facilities, with 2 glass melting furnaces, have 22% of the market share in Turkey, yet it is one of the best ones in the world. It was awarded as one of the best manufacturing facilities by “American Glass Research”, an independent institution. We are the only company that is able to manufacture a liquor bottle as light as 180 gr when it is normally manufactured as 200 gr. With this lightening technology, we could manufacture approximately 40 gross tones more glass packaging in Turkey which means that with the lightening procedure, we manufactured 40 gross tones with less glass. This has a huge environmental impact.”

Emphasizing that the buyers have serious advantages with the said technology, Mr. Usta said that if the receiving parties were to buy in tonnage terms, they had 10% more glass packaging. At the same time, he said, lighter packages meant more loading capacity for shipping.

“We will invest in Belgium, England, and Slovenia.”

Mr Usta also stated that they had a new facility in Bozüyük, and that facility hosted important consumers and producers. “We started to manufacture a little for them, he continued, and therefore the others asked whether we could manufacture for them or not. As a result, we took a step on the road to make such agreements. We will invest in Bozüyük, Turkey. Apart from that, we will also invest in Belgium, England, the USA, and Slovenia.”

“We will make a 5,4 million tones of manufacturing in the USA together with Şişecam.”

In his latest remarks, Mr. Usta mentioned that only in 10 years, they became the biggest player in the world on the solution mining business. “In Turkey, our capacity is equal to 4,4 million tones with both Eti Soda and Kazan Soda. We raised it to 4,7 million tones. This capacity will increase by 500 gross tonnes with the upcoming investments. In the USA, we manufacture 2,5 million tonnes, and we have an investment to increase this amount by 1 million tones, as well. Besides, we are planning a new investment in the USA for solution mining. We will manufacture 5,4 million tonnes in the USA together with our partner Şişecam.