The master craftsman takes the glowing glass ball out of the flames using a cane, then rolls it in gold dust. “Once cooled, this piece will be part of a chandelier”, explains Andrea della Valentina. His company, Seguso, has been producing decorative glass pieces on the island of Murano, near Venice, for generations. “But, today, everything is threatened”, he laments, observing the ovens, the heat of which invades the workshop in waves. “They run on methane, any other source of energy is prohibited for safety reasons. In other words, the rise in gas prices is very painful for us. “
Since January and October, the prices at which the glassmakers of Murano buy their gas have, in fact, climbed to 500%. An outbreak that is difficult to sustain for this industry born in the 13th centurye century, already put to the test by the Covid-19. In October alone, energy prices rose 25.3% in the Peninsula, according to Eurostat, or even more than in the European Union as a whole (22.6%). “The ovens must run twenty-four hours a day to maintain the temperature at 1,200 ° C at the center”, details Gianni de Checchi, director of Confartigianato Venezia, the confederation of artisans in Venice. “Turning them off is complex and expensive, so you only do it once a year, for maintenance. And it takes several days to restart them. “
Selling at a loss
Simone Cenedese runs the company of twenty employees created by her father in 1970. “We consume approximately 50,000 cubic meters of gas per month”, he explains, before taking out his bills. “For September, the bill was 13,105 euros. In October, she climbed to 48,460 euros! “
This summer, as tourists finally returned to the lagoon, the glassblowers were barely starting to raise their heads after the Covid-19 and the “acqua alta”, the exceptionally high tide of November 2019, which caused a lot of damage to the sea. the island. Today, the order books are filling up again, but part of the production coming out of the ovens is sold at the prices negotiated before the surge in commodity prices. “Even if we partially pass this increase on to our catalogs, the additional cash flow will not be forthcoming”, adds Andrea della Valentina.
In the meantime, many are selling at a loss. Simone Cenedese, he chose to increase despite all his prices from 15% to 20%, “But we can not more, and some customers will not follow”. Every morning, many of his colleagues get up with the same anxieties. Will prices fall soon? Should we consider stopping the ovens and production, death in the soul, as during the Covid-19 – at the risk of losing orders? “This is the last end, the most painful, but we may have to consider it at Christmas”, explains Luciano Gambaro, at the head of Gambaro & Tagliapietra, the company created by his father and uncle in 1974, also president of Promovetro Murano, the consortium representing the sector. “Twelve of the sixty factories with an oven have already done so. “
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