Gypsum industry news

India: UltraTech Cement has transported a shipment of 57,000t of phosphogypsum by coastal and inland waterways to its Gujarat plant at Kovaya in Amreli district. The subsidiary of Aditya Birla Group says this is the first operation of its kind in the country, according to Orissa Diary.

K C Jhanwar, the managing director of UltraTech Cement, said "The cement industry plays a pivotal role in driving the circular economy in India through the use of industrial and municipal waste in cement manufacturing. This industry-first initiative of UltraTech Cement in using inland and coastal waterways for transport of phosphogypsum will help to further strengthen the role of the cement sector in driving the circular economy in India."

The cement company sourced the phosphogypsum from the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative and Paradeep Phosphates. Legacy stock of the by-product from fertiliser plants in the country are estimated to be about 70Mt.

India: France-based Saint-Gobain has opened a 600-bed coronavirus hospital in a converted office building in Surat, Gujarat. The total building time for the project was just 17 days, which the company said was ‘due to the choice of materials, namely gypsum wallboard over bricks and mortar.’ The Hindu BusinessLine newspaper has reported that the company used 4830m² of gypsum wallboard to build partition walls throughout the eight-storey building, in accordance with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.

India: Pierre-Andre de Chalendar, chairman and chief executive officer of Saint-Gobain, has inaugurated the company’s Jhagadia 30Mm² gypsum wallboard plant in Gujarat. The plant is the largest wallboard plant in the country. Saint-Gobain’s local subsidiary, Gyproc, operates three other plants in Haryana, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

India: Gyproc India is preparing to open a 30Mm² gypsum wallboard plant in Gujarat by the end of August 2017. The US$62m plant has taken about two years to build, according to the Hindu newspaper. The subsidiary of France's Saint-Gobain currently operates three wallboard plants at Haryana, Maharashtra and Karnataka with a total production capacity of 55Mm².