The furnace is expected to restore about 21 000 tonnes of annual capacity at the plant.

“The restart of the second furnace at Lexington helps position PPG to support increasing demand for fibre glass as the economy returns,” says Kevin McDonald, PPG general manager, fibre glass reinforcements, Americas and Europe.

The Lexington plant has added 180 employees to support the furnace restart, some of which were recalled from layoffs.

Pittsburgh, USA, based PPG is a global supplier of paints, coatings, optical products, speciality materials, chemicals, glass and fibre glass.