Gypsum industry news

India: The government of Telangana State will supply gypsum to farmers at a 50% subsidy. Telangana Markfed and AP Agros have been selected as the nodal agencies to supply the gypsum. The subsidy portion would be met from normal State plan, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture and the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) programmes.

India: Gypsum consumption in India is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 4% during 2012 – 2018 according to the latest market reports. The growing demand for gypsum, due to the amplified construction activity, high cement consumption and extensive use of gypsum in fertilisers and ceramic products, has resulted in escalating gypsum consumption.

India: Engineering firm Pennar Industries Ltd has announced that its subsidiaries, Pennar Engineered Building Systems (PEBS Pennar) and Pennar Enviro Ltd (PEL), have received US$17.5m of orders, including a gypsum storage unit for UltaTech Cement in Gujarat State.

"Pennar is pleased to announce receipt of orders worth US$17.5m from prestigious customers," said Pennar's vice chairman and managing director Aditya Rao. "All business units are focused on gaining market share and maintaining operating margins. We believe that as the macro-economic conditions improve, our positioning will ensure that we benefit in revenue and even gain market share."

Russia: Saint-Gobain has announced that it intends to build a gypsum plant in one of the lime fields in Chelyabinsk Oblast. The plant will produce products under the Gyproc name. The investment amount has not been reported. Saint-Gobain also has a company producing Linerock basalt fibre at the Minplita plant in Chelyabinsk Oblast.

India: India's FACT-RCF Building Products Ltd hopes that sales of gypsum-based building products will help it to reach US$50.8m in revenue in the current fiscal year.

The company, which is a joint venture between Kerala-based Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore and Mumbai's Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, has received an encouraging response from users of gypsum products. End users have already purchased around 23,226m² of products, according to Jaiveer Srivastava, chairman and managing director of FACT-RCF.

The company has set up a 1400000m²/yr capacity plant in Kochi, Kerala at an investment of US$25.4m. Srivastava described the gypsum-based building products as a solution to address the issues connected with natural resource constraints in the building sector at a time when the availability of water, sand and labour are becoming scarce.

US: Eagle Materials Inc has reported financial results for fiscal year 2014, which ended on 31 March 2014. Company revenues were up by 40% year-on-year to US$898.4m and net earnings grew by 50% year-on-year to US$200m, reflecting improved sales volumes and stronger sales prices across all business lines. Annual revenue and earnings improvement also reflects the acquisition of assets, including cement plants in Missouri and Oklahoma on 30 November 2012.

Fiscal 2014 operating earnings from gypsum wallboard and paperboard grew by 46% year-on-year to US$138.5m. Revenues from gypsum wallboard and paperboard were up by 22% year-on-year at US$465.1m.

Gypsum wallboard and paperboard fourth quarter operating earnings were US$29.0m, up by 9% from the same quarter of fiscal 2013. The increase in operating earnings was due to higher wallboard sales prices and volumes, which were offset by US$1.5m maintenance costs, US$1.3m legal costs and US$0.9m natural gas costs, all of which grew compared with fiscal 2013. Gypsum wallboard and paperboard revenues for the fourth quarter grew by 11% year-on-year to US$106.3m. Wallboard sales volumes were up by 2% year-on-year to 442Mft² and paperboard sales volumes for the quarter grew by 4% year-on-year to 59,000t.

US: United States Gypsum (USG) has received a 1.750ML/day water use permit for a planned wallboard and joint compound (spackle) manufacturing plant near the Duke Energy complex in the city of Crystal River, Florida.

In 2011 USG bought 0.716km² of land near the Progress Energy Florida power plant, now Duke Energy, to warehouse synthetic gypsum that is created by scrubbers at the coal-burning plants. USG takes all of the gypsum produced at the plant and moves it to the site by conveyor belt.

USG now plans to construct a gypsum processing facility at the site. Part of the water permit detailed a request for two 30.5cm wells to be located on the plant site, to which water will be piped. The plant will run six days a week, possibly seven during the peak building season.

Progressive Water Resources, which is handling the application process for USG, also investigated using reclaimed wastewater from Crystal River. However, that water has already been committed to Duke Energy.

UK: Allied Custom Gypsum (ACG), a worldwide provider of gypsum products, has announced that it is now certified by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), a leading global safety and quality certification program, as compliant to Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).

Used by more than 20,000 certified suppliers in 90 countries, the BRC is the world's largest provider of safety and quality standards programmes for food manufacturing, packaging, storage, distribution and consumer products. The BRC aids in standardising quality, safety, operational criteria and manufacturers' fulfilment of legal obligations.

"We are extremely pleased to make the announcement of our certification and become the first and only certified calcium sulphate supplier," said Jim Hill, vice president of marketing. "At ACG, we understand the responsibility inherent in processing and packaging food and pharmaceutical grade calcium sulphate. That's why we have dedicated one of our two grinding facilities to the production of food and pharmaceutical grade calcium sulphate," said Hill. "Our commitment to high-quality standards is unprecedented."

UK: Energy savings of 63% have been achieved following the installation of multiple Saint-Gobain systems in a world-first retrofit research project.

Saint-Gobain worked with the Energy House at Salford University, Greater Manchester, UK to prove that whole-house, fabric first retrofitting of homes can deliver significantly reduced energy costs, lower CO₂ emissions and remove 50% of air leakage.

The Energy House at Salford University is a typical 1919 terraced house that has been reconstructed in a fully environmentally controllable chamber, in which climatic conditions can be maintained, varied, repeated and patterns monitored. The type of building used in the study represents 21% of UK housing stock and is classed as a hard-to-treat property due to its poor energy efficiency derived from solid wall construction.

The Energy House at Salford University included Saint-Gobain systems from British Gypsum, Glassolutions, Isover and Weber to bring high levels of thermal efficiency. The approach of the project was to measure the whole-house performance post-installation using off-the-shelf Saint-Gobain systems and standard installation techniques, making the results repeatable across the UK's hard-to-treat housing stock.

Pakistan: An explosion in a gypsum mine in Khewra, Jhelum District left three people dead and seven others buried under rubble on 15 April 2014, according to local press. The explosion, which was a planned explosion carried out to expand the mine, appears to have gone wrong.