News Processing & productivity
Canadian Premium Sand to focus on solar glass

Photo by Canadian Premium Sand

Canadian Premium Sand has announced its planned float glass plant near Seymourville, Man., will focus on solar glass production. The company announced its intention to build a float glass plant early this year, but faced a decision on whether to produce architectural glass or patterned solar glass. The announcement dashes near-term hopes for a return of architectural float glass production to Canada after an absence spanning more than a decade. CPS CEO, Glenn Leroux, joined the GlassTalk podcast this summer to discuss the company’s plans at that time.

CPS’s announcement follows:

We are pleased to announce the decision to focus future manufacturing operations on the North American patterned solar glass market. This decision is based on an in-depth analysis of various end market segments for glass manufacturing and is supported by the Company’s NI 43-101 compliant Technical Report filed on SEDAR.

“We are extremely excited about the decision to focus our development activities on the solar glass market given its attractive growth profile and its suitability to maximize the value of our high-purity, low-iron sand resource. As we finalize the details of our Front End Engineering Design process, we expect to be in a position to announce our plans regarding facility size, configuration and expected economics prior to year-end 2021.” – Glenn Leroux, President & CEO

Key Rationale:

• The Company’s high-purity, low-iron silica sand deposit is ideally suited for solar glass manufacturing as reflected in the Company’s Technical Report Inferred Resource of 7.25 million tonnes;
• CPS management discussions with domestic solar panel manufacturers have illustrated a need for a reliable local supply of high-quality solar glass to accommodate both current production and future growth plans;

Link to full news release.