In order to maintain competitiveness, the glass industry faces the challenge of developing technologies and operational practices that guarantee "low energy consumption" and/or "low energy cost" production processes, while reducing operational costs and complying with all the environmental regulations within the territories where it operates. For many years, Mexican-based Vitro preferred natural gas and heavy fuel oil for glass making. However, in Mexico, the price for these has become highly volatile and has been increasing for many years, making the search for alternate fuels a major priority for the company and, within this context, seeking the use of petroleum coke as a possible solution to the problem. Petroleum coke is a solid waste by-product of the petroleum refining industry and its production is projected to continue to increase, due to the fact that many refining plants are undergoing or planning process conversions in order to obtain higher value products. Hence, Vitro set up test facilities and undertook a series of pilot tests in order to demonstrate the technical feasibility of using petroleum coke as an alternate fuel for the glass industry. Several laboratory and industrial tests were carried out with successful results.
