Gypsum industry news

US: The Fifth Federal Reserve District member banks have elected CEO Tom Nelson to serve as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. His three-year term begins on 1 January 2015.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is one of 12 district banks that work with the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors to strengthen the economy and communities served by the banks. The Richmond bank includes the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and most of West Virginia.

Nelson will be one of nine board directors of the Richmond institution. He has been chairman, president and CEO of National Gypsum since 1999. He also serves as a director of Belk Inc, Carolinas HealthCare System and Yum! Brands Inc.

US: National Gypsum has halted its plans for a West Milton power generation plant fuelled by burning tyres due to the plummeting price of natural gas and protests from local residents.

National Gypsum planned to buy steam and electricity produced from the plant, but with the price of natural gas considerably lower, using the tyre-burning power generator no longer offered cost savings. The company stated that it still firmly believes the En-Tire project is environmentally sound and would have provided much-needed jobs, but that it must also consider the objections of the White Deer community, with which it has a good working relationship.

"I'm glad to hear that," White Deer township supervisor Don Wilver said. "That speaks well of them as a partner in the community."

The Tyre Burner Team, a group that vocally and persistently protested the plant, plans to share its steps with other organisations and remains ready to re-commit to stopping the project should any such plans emerge again.

En-Tire Logistics LLC of Bedford, Texas, which would have operated the facility, plans to pursue a tyre-derived fuel plant elsewhere in Pennsylvania. The company is disappointed over the demise of the White Deer Energy Project, said CEO Willess Vincent. "We will be looking for another site for the facility and will absolutely look in Pennsylvania," he said, but would not disclose where. Vincent signed the written request sent to the state Department of Environmental Protection to shelve the air-quality permit approval the agency had granted the project in September 2013.

US: More than a dozen lawsuits alleging price-fixing on the part of major manufacturers of wallboard have been consolidated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The location was chosen as most of the parties are located in the area and a majority of the parties advocated for consolidation in that district. US District Judge Michael Baylson will handle the case.

"From at least September 2011 to the present the defendants, manufacturers of gypsum board, combined and conspired to fix and raise the prices at which they sold gypsum board in the United States beginning with large and coordinated price increases that all became effective on or about 1 or 2 January 2012," according to the complaint filed in one case originating in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Janicki Drywall versus CertainTeed.

Major manufacturers of wallboard have annual sales of more than US$5bn, according to the complaint and the defendants are seeking treble damages. The defendants in the suit account for more than 99% of wallboard sold in North America, according to the complaint. They are USG, National Gypsum, CertainTeed, Georgia-Pacific, American Gypsum, Lafarge, Temple-Inland and PABCO.

In a previous status conference for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania cases, Steven Bizar of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney was named as interim liaison counsel for the defence, while H Laddie Montague Jr of Berger & Montague had been named interim liaison counsel for the plaintiffs.

US: National Gypsum and Recycled Energy Development (RED) has announced the opening of a combined heat and power (CHP) project at National Gypsum's Burlington, New Jersey, facility. The project produces approximately 3.4MW of electricity and delivers more than 30MMBtu/hr of thermal energy, resulting in an overall efficiency of greater than 90%.

"CHP is benefitting our company's bottom line," said John Corsi, vice president of Manufacturing Operations and Engineering at National Gypsum. "This facility allows National Gypsum to further strengthen our competitiveness, increase our reliability, as well as improve our environmental stewardship."

RED's cogeneration system provides power and thermal energy to National Gypsum's wallboard production facility, reducing its costs, energy-intensity, and greenhouse-gas emissions. The system captures excess heat from the gas turbine's combustion and uses it within the board dryer to dry wallboard.

The project benefitted from a US$1.3m competitive grant administered by New Jersey's Economic Development Authority and Board of Public Utilities.

US: Federal District Court Judge John E Steele has issued orders dismissing all claims against National Gypsum in the Brincku and Brucker lawsuits, which had claimed that National Gypsum's US-made wallboard had caused the same corrosive effects in the plaintiffs' homes as allegedly defective Chinese wallboard.

The lawsuits alleged that the company manufactured defective wallboard, which contained high levels of sulphur, released hydrogen sulphide gas from bacteria and corroded copper and other metals inside their homes. Unrebutted scientific evidence provided by the company proved this was not the case.

"We are extremely pleased that our company's products and reputation have been completely vindicated," said CEO Thomas C Nelson. "This ruling confirms what we have said all along: National Gypsum wallboard is a high-quality, safe and environmentally-sound product. Every single false allegation has been rebutted by sound science from the nation's leading laboratories and safety experts."

The court's ruling concludes a long saga which began in 2009. In response to the allegations, the company engaged Packer Engineering and Columbia Analytical Services, two independent testing laboratories, to conduct elemental sulphur, copper corrosion and gas chamber tests on the company's wallboard. Other professionals also tested the air, water and surrounding environments of the homes. These results were consistent with studies done for the Consumer Products Safety Commission by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Environmental Health & Engineering.

The dismissal of the Brincku and Brucker lawsuits is the latest in a series of similar cases that have been thrown out of court. In April 2011 an Arizona putative national class action case against National Gypsum was voluntarily withdrawn after the plaintiffs admitted that there was no scientific or causal evidence to support it. In October 2011, an Alabama lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs are barred from bringing the same claim against the company in the future.

Saudi Arabia: National Gypsum Company has announced interim financial results for the period ending 30 June 2012. These show a net income for the second quarter of 2012 of US$1.76m compared to US$2.7m in the same period of 2011, a year-on-year drop of over a third. There was also a sharp drop compared to the first quarter of 2012, when the company had a net income of US$2.50m. National Gypsum's gross profit for the second quarter of 2012 came in at US$2.26m compared to US$3.39m for the same quarter of 2011, a near-30% fall.

Over the course of the six months to 30 June 2012, the company said that it made a net profit of US$4.26m, compared to US$5.6m in the six months to 30 June 2011. Its gross profit for the six months came in at US$4.65m compared to US$6.73m a year earlier, another drop of more than 30%.

National Cement said that the reason for the drop in its performance was increased competition.