Gypsum industry news
New Zealand: The Commerce Commission has said that builders have found it difficult to substitute alternative brands of gypsum wallboard because the building material is commonly specified by brand in building plans. Differences in consenting decisions by local government authorities and quantity-forcing rebates for wallboard have also been identified as making it harder for builders to source supplies. The regulator has been investigating general residential building supplies since November 2021 and made the comments as part of a draft report.
Commission chair Anna Rawlings said “Our preliminary view is that competition for the supply of key building supplies is not working as well as it could, and would be improved if it was easier for building products to be introduced and for competing suppliers to expand their business.”
The draft report has found certain brands of product have become ‘embedded’ in home-building practice in New Zealand and has recommended that the building regulatory system should include competition as a deliberate objective. It added that, in some circumstances, some types of rebates paid by established suppliers to merchants appeared to be reinforcing difficulties faced by competing products. The commission will now take comment on its draft report until September 2022. The final report will be published in December 2022.
Winstone Wallboards’ GIB product range is the main brand of wallboard used in the country. The company is reported to hold around a 95% share of the local market. Wallboard shortages have been reported since mid-2021.
Germany: The German Gypsum Association (GIPS) has welcomed the publication of a government report that took an inventory of natural gypsum deposits. It supports the work as it allows its members to make qualified decisions about future planning. The Federal Commission on Geosciences (BLA-GEO) has created a register of gypsum supplies in the country. The association added that it believes there will be no large-scale alternatives to natural gypsum supplies in the foreseeable future. This is due to low volumes of gypsum recycling and falling production of flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) Gypsum as coal power plants are shut down.
