Gypsum industry news

Germany: Australia’s James Hardie has completed its acquisition of Fermacell for Euro473m. It agreed to buy the gypsum wallboard producer from Xella International in November 2017 and then took out a loan in December 2017 to cover the purchase.

James Hardie plans to include European Building Products segment in its report of quarterly results from the first quarter of 2019. This new segment will include the on-going James Hardie European Fiber Cement business and the newly acquired Fermacell business. The current International Fiber Cement segment will be renamed Asia Pacific Fiber Cement and will include its Australia, New Zealand and Philippines businesses.

Australia: Boral Ltd has announced that its profit for the first half of the 2017-2018 fiscal year (from 1 July 2017 – 31 December 2017) rose by 13%. The company benefited from the 2017 acquisition of the US-based building products firm Headwaters Inc. and continued growth in its Australian business.

It reported a net profit of US$136.0m for the six month period, a rise of 12.7% compared to the same period of the 2016 – 2017 fiscal year when it made US$120.7m. Its profit before amortisation and significant items increased by 58% to US$$186.5m.

"These strong results confirm that our transformation strategy is on track," said Chief Executive Mike Kane. "The Headwaters acquisition has helped transform Boral into a construction materials and building products group with a greater geographic reach and improved prospects for growth."

Boral’s US business, which was only breaking even in 2015 – 2016, recorded a fourfold rise in earnings, despite adverse impacts from bad weather, including two hurricanes.

Kane also said Boral’s Australian arm, its largest divison, was ‘exceptionally strong’ during the half. Boral reported a 12% rise in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation from that business.

"Higher revenues and earnings were driven by increased spending on infrastructure, in line with our expectations that a large proportion of our work would gradually shift from residential to infrastructure projects, primarily in the eastern states," said Kane.
Boral reported a 1% dip in earnings from its USG Boral division, a joint-venture with USG Corp., the largest US maker of gypsum wallboard, which operates throughout Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.

Australia/UK: Richard Cousins the former chief executive of UK-based wallboard producer BPB has died in a plane accident in Australia. He worked for six years as the chief executive officer for BPB following a number of previous roles at the company. Following its takeover by Saint-Gobain he subsequently joined the board of Compass group in the food services sector and became its group chief executive in 2006.

Australia: Clean TeQ plans to build a 2Ml/day DeSALx mine water treatment plant for Fosterville Gold Mine for its mine near Bendigo in Victoria. The US$2.7m unit will use an integrated precipitation and continuous ionic filtration process (DeSALx) that will produce a gypsum-based by-product. This by-product will be compatible with Fosterville’s existing lime treatment plant. Equipment supply, installation and commissioning of the water treatment plant are scheduled for 2018.

The precipitation process removes arsenic and antimony from the mine water as a co-precipitate. The water is then treated by the DeSALx process to remove hardness, sulphate and other dissolved metals. Clean TeQ is also in talks with other mining companies to test its continuous ion-exchange systems for the treatment of process water treatment for recycling or environmental discharge.

Germany: Australia’s James Hardie is to buy Fermacell for Euro473m. The Australian company has entered into a definitive agreement to buy XI (DL) Holdings and its subsidiaries, including the gypsum fibreboard producer. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter 2018.

“Fermacell’s market position, go-to-market strategy and strong management team will enable us to scale and accelerate our European business, which has long been a strategic goal. Fermacell will diversify our geographic, product and end-market portfolio, complementing our strong positions in North America and Australasia, and will create significant growth opportunities and drive long-term value for customers, employees and shareholders,” said Louis Gries, chief executive officer (EO) of James Hardie.

Jack Truong, President, International Operations of James Hardie, added that Fermacell’s ‘broad’ European footprint and capabilities were expected to ‘accelerate’ his company’s fibre cement business growth in Europe. James Hardie is also ‘excited’ about the future growth opportunities of Fermacell’s core business in regions such as the UK, France, and Scandinavia.

Australia: The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has claimed that workers at Knauf’s Bundaberg wallboard plant have been bullied and intimidated over safety issues. The CFMEU has released information that claims that Workplace Health and Safety Queensland has hit the plant with eight safety improvement notices since it opened in late August 2017.

The CFMEU’s divisional branch assistant secretary Jade Ingham said said that workers had been greeted with a hostile response when they attempted to take their safety concerns higher. “These workers have been bullied and intimidated for raising concerns about the safety and wellbeing of them and their workmates,” she said. “To have a brand new state-of-the-art factory like this have eight safety improvement notices cast upon it in the first two months of being open is a disgrace.”

Knauf Plasterboard Operations Director Sean Wareham confirmed that the factory had received eight work improvement notices but that ‘none of the items found were deemed to warrant the issue of an infringement notice.’ He said that, throughout its commissioning, the company had maintained its goal to ensure that all factory, engineering, safety practices and legal compliance requirements were adhered to.
“WorkSafe Queensland was invited to attend the Bundaberg site yesterday and determined six of the eight improvement notices have been closed out,” he said. “Of the two remaining notices, one is complete, awaiting official close out, and the other is on track to be completed ahead of time.”
Wareham said as part of Knauf’s commitment to providing a safe place to work, the company actively encouraged employees to raise safety matters, took any improvement recommendations extremely seriously and continued to work closely with its employees and WorkSafe Queensland.

Australia: After a construction period of just 11 months, the US$55m Knauf gypsum wallboard factory at Bundaberg, Queensland has produced its first wallboard. The plant received its first delivery of gypsum at the plant in late July 2017.

Australia: The Port of Bundaberg has received its first shipment of gypsum for the new Knauf Plasterboard wallboard plant that has been built there. The US$55m plant has recently been constructed at the port, according to Australian Government News. The port expects to receive a gypsum shipment every two to three months from now on. The wallboard plant is expected to officially open in August 2017.

Australia: Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment Curtis Pitt toured the construction site of Knauf Australia's US$53m wallboard manufacturing facility near Bundaberg on Wednesday 15 March 2017. Construction of the plant began in early 2016.

"Knauf Australia is well on the way to completing its plasterboard manufacturing factory at the Port of Bundaberg and is expected to commission the plant by mid-July and begin production in August," said Pitt. "Knauf considered a number of locations for its new plant to service the northern Australian markets, including some offshore options. Attracting a global operation like Knauf to Bundaberg offers many benefits for the local community, including the creation of 60 jobs in the region, and around 70 when full production is reached in two years."

Australia: Boral's revenue from its gypsum wallboard join venture, USG Boral, has risen by 2% year-on-year to US$566m in the first half of its financial year, which ended on 31 December 2016, from US$552m in the same period in 2015. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 18% to US$116m from US$98.5m. It attributed the sales growth to growth in its Sheetrock plasterboard product. The on-going rollout of Sheetrock is scheduled to continue until the end of 2017. Regionally, sales growth in South Korea, Australia and Thailand offset a declining market in China.

The building materials company added that its joint venture had started building a new warehouse at its USG Boral's Dangjin facility in South Korea in the reporting period. The upgrade at the site is intended to add incremental capacity and support the longer-term addition of at least 30Mm²/yr of plasterboard production capacity at the site, which has existing capacity to produce around 70Mm²/yr. The investment will be self-funded through the joint venture.

Overall, Boral's sales revenue fell by 5% to US$1.6bn from US$1.68bn. However, its profit after tax rose by 9% to US$114m from US$105m. It attributed this to a 'solid' performance in Australia combined with good earnings from Boral USA and USG Boral.