Photo of Glava's production.

Glava and Gasum: sustainable partnership for a decade

Norwegian industrial company Glava has made its production value chain more sustainable with LNG. The partnership between Glava and Gasum started over 10 years ago, when one of the best-known Norwegian brands decided to switch its energy consumption from oil to gas. Glava is also exploring possibilities to further reduce emissions with renewable biogas.

Glava is a leading Norwegian industrial company, and one of the best-known brands in Norway. Established in 1935, it is the market leader in producing and supplying materials and solutions for smart building and insulation. Producing insulation material such as glass wool is extremely energy intensive and requires a constant and reliable supply of cost-effective energy.

Glava decided to switch from propane to LNG (liquefied natural gas) already over 10 years ago, initially reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 8–10 percent. Gasum supplies Glava with LNG through an LNG terminal close to their site in Askim, southeastern Norway.

“Gasum has been a reliable partner for us and is absolutely crucial as we depend on a continuous gas supply. Gasum has also proven that they can do this at a competitive price, and they also evolve by developing new and even more environmentally-friendly solutions,” says Iver Kasbo, Glava’s Purchasing Manager for raw materials.

Gasum provides reliability and security of supply

Using LNG instead of propane is part of Glava’s efforts to make their energy use more sustainable. However, what is critical for Glava’s operation is the reliability of the energy source and the security of supply.

With Gasum’s terminal geographically very close to Glava’s site in Askim, Glava can rely on a safe and predictable flow of energy. Subsequently, Glava has been able to reduce their CO2 emissions significantly while benefiting from effortless plug-and-play gas deliveries.  

Helping their customers to switch from oil to natural gas and biogas is part of Gasum’s strategy to lower greenhouse gas emissions across their customers’ value chains.

“We are very proud of having Glava as our customer. They are probably the best-known brand in Norway and arguably everyone in Norway recognizes their brand and slogans. The fact that a company like Glava trusts us in such a business-critical operation as energy supply makes us extremely proud, it also involves great responsibility,” says Trond Jerve, Senior Sales Manager for Industry Norway at Gasum. 

Plans to blend in renewable LBG in future

LNG is a very efficient fuel for demanding industrial processes such as producing insulation materials like glass wool. It is easy to regulate in line with the process need, it has significantly lower CO2 emissions than oil, no dust, low NOx emissions and almost no sulfur emissions at all. 

Moreover, with LNG infrastructure already in place, it is easy to blend in completely renewable liquified biogas (LBG) and subsequently further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, LBG can reduce lifecycle CO2 emissions by up to 90 percent compared to conventional fuel.

“At the moment our goal is that Gasum will give us the backing we need to reduce our emissions even further with biogas,” Iver Kasbo concludes.