O-I Glass, Inc. announced a significant investment to support strong customer demand for highly sustainable glass packaging. O-I will invest approximately 75 million USD in an expansion at its Zipaquirá, Colombia, facility. Upon completion by the end of 2022, the project is expected to add nearly 2 percent of capacity to the company’s Americas segment and produce about 500 million bottles annually.
“Our customers recognize the strong brand building characteristics and superior sustainability profile that make glass the preferred packaging substrate. In particular, strong market growth and affinity for glass is fuelling significant demand for glass packaging in the Andean market. Building on our highly successful expansion at the Zipaquirá facility in 2019, we are excited to add a fourth furnace with an attractive return on investment to support market growth. As a result, the facility will be one of O-I’s largest and most cost effective plants in the global network,” said Andres Lopez, O-I CEO.
“Working with our customers, we aim to enable profitable growth in attractive markets such as this new furnace at Zipaquirá and last year’s expansion at Gironcourt, France. At the same time, we are fully committed to reducing debt and optimizing our business portfolio supported by our tactical and strategic divestiture program. To date, we have completed approximately 900 million USD of divestitures with proceeds directed to reduce debt. To support the Zipaquirá expansion and maintain our debt reduction targets, we have expanded our total divestiture target to 1.15 billion USD or higher by the end of 2022. As we strive to increase shareholder value, we believe these actions will generate profitable growth, higher margins, enhance our business portfolio and strengthen our balance sheet,” concluded Lopez.