French glass manufacturer Verallia does not plan to close any more furnaces despite market conditions.

It comes amid a slowdown in the glass packaging sector, which has been blamed on a variety of reasons including destocking among customers.

Verallia CEO Patrice Lucas said the company was not running about 10% of its production capacity as a result, which will be the case until the end of the year. 

The group closed a furnace in Essen earlier in the year due to changes in the German market.

“As we speak, we do not have any plan to shut down definitively additional furnaces,” said Mr Lucas.

He added: "We do expect with volume recovery in 2025 to better use our capacity, but again with high monitoring to keep our inventory under control and no definitive additional shutdown schedule as we speak.”

Revenue for the fist nine months of the year was down 8.7% compared to the same period last year.

The company said: “The recovery in activity remains very gradual in Europe, with activity levels in Q3 broadly in line with Q2, soft final consumption and, for certain market segments such as spirits, high inventory levels downstream of the value chain.”