Gypsum industry news

Russia: CJSC Knauf Gips Baskunchak, based in the Astrakhan region, plans to start developing the Kashara-Tugai gypsum deposit before the end of 2015, according to company director Sergei Michkov.

"We are commissioning the Kashara-Tugai deposit, located north of Lake Baskunchak. We have received the development license and the documentation has been agreed. The reserves are quite large: it will support production for 100 years," said Michkov in comments reported on by Interfax.

Astrakhan region has reported 67.5Mt of gypsum registered on its state records. Knauf Gips Baskunchak had a total of 111Mt of gypsum reserves recorded at the start of 2015. Knauf Gips Baskunchak, which joined the Knauf group in 1998, produces high-quality dry mixes from gypsum and supplies gypsum to Russian cement plants and other enterprises.

US: Transnational Group Inc has exchanged executed Letters of Intent with Nevada Outdoor School to secure rights to mine gypsum on several claims located in southern Nevada that comprise Mount Vista Gypsum Property. Transnational Group expects the project to yield over 600,000t/yr of gypsum and could begin producing during the third quarter of 2015.

US: Holcim (US) Inc., a major cement manufacturer and part of Switzerland's Holcim Ltd., has filed an application with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for an operating permit to quarry gypsum on 21.4 hectares (53 acres) of private land about 15km southeast of Geyser in Judith Basin County. The gypsum will be used to make cement at the company's Trident Cement Plant near Three Forks, according to Herb Rolfes, supervisor of the Department of Environmental Quality's (DEQ) Operating Permit Section. Gypsum has been mined at the site in the past.

"It should be a relatively benign type of mine," Rolfes said. "There's no real issues as far as chemistry or water quality that will be a problem." DEQ officials are reviewing the application and will write a draft environmental assessment that will be put out for public comment in the second quarter of 2013. About 3.9 hectares (nine acres) would be disturbed over the next five years, with about 21.4 hectares (53 acres) being disturbed over the estimated 18-year life of the mine.

US: NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, which appears to be gypsum, deposited on Mars. Analysis of the vein will help improve understanding of the history of wet environments on the planet.

"This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for Opportunity. "This stuff is a fairly pure chemical deposit that formed in place right where we see it. That can't be said for other gypsum seen on Mars or for other water-related minerals Opportunity has found. It's not uncommon on Earth, but on Mars, it's the kind of thing that makes geologists jump out of their chairs."

The latest findings by Opportunity were presented on 7 December 2011 at the American Geophysical Union's conference in San Francisco.

The vein examined most closely by Opportunity is about 1cm – 2cm wide, 40cm to 50cm long, and it protrudes slightly higher than the bedrock on either side of it. Observations by the rover reveal this vein and others like it within an apron surrounding a segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater.

In November 2011 researchers used the Microscopic Imager and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer on the rover's arm and multiple filters of the Panoramic Camera on the rover's mast to examine the vein, which is informally named "Homestake." The spectrometer identified plentiful calcium and sulphur, in a ratio pointing to relatively pure calcium sulphate. The multi-filter data from the camera suggest gypsum, a hydrated calcium sulphate.

Observations from orbit have detected gypsum on Mars previously. A dune field of windblown gypsum on far northern Mars resembles the glistening gypsum dunes in White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, US. However the Homestake vein is the first time the mineral has been spotted where it formed.

Canada: Georgia-Pacific has idled its Cape Breton gypsum mine in Nova Scotia due to the weak US dollar and low demand for wallboard in the US. The company is laying off 34 workers at the site whilst retaining eight others as a skeleton staff.

Georgia-Pacific told its workers on 2 December 2011 that it will indefinitely idle operations at its Sugar Camp quarry. "This is not a closure or a shutdown; it's an indefinite idle," said company spokesman Eric Abercrombie. "This is purely a business decision to idle the facility based on the North American market conditions and the weaker US dollar."

Georgia-Pacific had 73 employees in Cape Breton until the autumn of 2011. The Sugar Camp operation has been open since 1962. In December 2011 USG permanently closed the Fundy Gypsum mine in Hantsport, Nova Scotia.

Canada: USG has announced that it permanently closing the Fundy Gypsum mine in Hantsport, Nova Scotia. 50 people were working at the mine until it was idled earlier in 2011. The Hantsport mine had been producing gypsum since 1934.

Robert Williams, spokesman for USG, said that the decision to close is a direct result of weak demand for USG's flagship wallboard Sheetrock® in the United States. because of the ongoing housing recession. He said being a stand-alone mine an expensive freighter ride away from USG's four US manufacturing plants also hurt the Hantsport mine's viability. Williams said finding another buyer will be difficult.

"The main use for gypsum is gypsum wallboard,"' he said. "It is unlikely that anyone else would have an appetite for it."

The company once employed hundreds of people and spent US$50m in the 1990s to upgrade the Hantsport operation.

Somaliland: GMT Minerals is looking to develop 'undoubtedly one of the largest' gypsum deposits in the world. Located in Berbera, Somaliland, the deposit is exposed for many miles, and extends for approximately five miles to the south of Berbera. It is between nine to 14 miles of a nearby port. The deposit is known to contain many millions of tons of good grade gypsum and anhydrite. It is thought that there are over 13Mt of greater than 90% pure gypsum and a further 9Mt of greater than 85% pure gypsum.

GMT Minerals is intending to establish a new front-end gypsum processing and handling facility near the deposit. The new front-end gypsum processing facility at Berbera will process about 2Mt/yr of gypsum and produce a homogenised, 50mm product that is suitable for pulverisation and calcination prior to use in board production.