Gypsum industry news

New Zealand: Winstone Wallboards has decided to move to an allocation model of supplying its GIB plasterboard products from July 2022 due to mounting lead times in manufacture. It said it would, effective immediately, not be accepting or processing new GIB plasterboard orders for July 2022 deliveries onwards. Instead it plans to assess the situation in the coming months and it anticipates moving to a process where customers order plasterboard products one month in advance.

The gypsum wallboard producer blamed the situation on significant disruption across the building industry caused by local-coronavirus-related lockdowns in August and September 2021. It said that this caused a backlog of orders. Subsequent record manufacturing output and imports were insufficient to alleviate the situation.

New Zealand: University of Canterbury (UC) student Andy (Minhong) Park has developed a biocomposite wall panel that uses seaweed or algae as a bio-filler. Preliminary testing indicates the plasterboard-style product offers similar fire performance to other commercially available products. Using seaweed also provides moisture control properties. The finished seaweed plasterboard product has a glossy marble surface, coloured green, red or brown depending on the type of seaweed used.

“Seaweed is fast-growing at 0.5m/day and is capable of sequestering around 173Mt/yr. It’s easy to cultivate and can be farmed offshore, not competing for farmable land with other bio-based materials, making it an attractive, low-cost farming commodity. Because seaweed can absorb carbon underwater, large wall-panel manufacturers could employ seaweed farming as a carbon offset by growing it,” said Park.

The 12 week project was supervised by UC Product Design Senior Lecturer Dr Tim Huber in collaboration with UC Fire Engineering Lecturer Dr Dennis Pau. While still in the early stages of research, design and testing, the team is working with the UC’s Research and Innovation team to develop a commercialisation plan, and Kaiārahi Rangahau Māori to identify suitable species of seaweed for product development and marine agriculture. The project recently won the UC Innovation Jumpstart Greatest Commercial Potential Award and a US$13,000 prize.

New Zealand: The New Zealand government has announced the lifting of Level 4 lockdown outside of Auckland. Radio New Zealand News has reported that this will enable construction to resume. Inside Auckland, gypsum wallboard is among four ‘critical products’ that the government has allowed to resume production.

The Building Industry Federation (BIF) said that the government had listened to suppliers' concerns.

New Zealand: USG Boral is preparing to stop operations in New Zealand in mid-November 2021. It said that it had been “unable to build a sustainable business,” according to the New Zealand Herald newspaper. 45 jobs will be lost due to departure. The company has offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and a distribution centre in Auckland. It imports and sells gypsum wallboard, ceiling panels, adhesives, cornices and roofing boards. Its exit will leave the local wallboard market split between manufacturer Winstone Wallboards and importer Elephant Plasterboard.

New Zealand: The New Zealand Ministry of Finance plans to launch a commission to investigate high building materials prices. The New Zealand Herald newspaper has reported that finance minister Grant Robertson said that New Zealanders pay too much for building materials. Robertson indicated that any probe would look into gypsum wallboard among other building materials. Average national building materials prices are 20 – 30% higher in New Zealand than in Australia.

Australia: Boral has updated the market on its transaction with Knauf in relation to its USG Boral joint venture. On 19 March 2020, Boral announced that its view was that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was unlikely to approve the call option in relation to the Australian and New Zealand business. In further discussions between Boral and Knauf, it has now become clear that obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals required to allow the transaction to be implemented as signed in August 2019 is not achievable by the 30 June 2020 deadline. Other conditions to the transaction also remain outstanding.

As a result, Boral and Knauf will consider a range of potential options, with Boral’s objective being to target a cash neutral transaction rather than a transaction with a significant funding requirement for Boral. Discussions are at a preliminary stage and any revised transaction remains subject to agreement between Boral and Knauf, and ultimately will also require the approval of regulators including the ACCC and New Zealand Commerce Commission (NZCC). Given this, the company’s pre-existing US$400m acquisition bridge facility, put in place for the purpose of completing the transaction with Knauf, was allowed to lapse.

Australia: Boral, already dealing with financial difficulty even before the coronavirus pandemic, has withdrawn its full-year profit guidance and warned that it will likely have to re-work its complex wallboard buyout transaction with USG / Knauf. The US$441m deal, announced in August 2019 with Knauf will likely need to be changed, after the Australasian component of it attracted the attention of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Under the complicated deal between USG Boral and Knauf, Boral was to pay US$200m for the other 50% of USG Boral that it did not already own in Australia, and US$241m for a 50% stake of the plasterboard joint venture in Asia. Knauf then had a call option to return to 50% ownership of the Australasian business within five years.

However, the ACCC is now looming as a roadblock. "As Boral and Knauf work with regulators as part of an ongoing process to obtain the relevant approvals, Boral's view now is that the ACCC is unlikely to approve the call option in relation to the Australian and New Zealand business," said Boral in a statement. This means a range of other options will be considered for the transaction.

Australia: Boral has announced that it is ‘considering a range of potential options’ regarding its planned resumption of 100% ownership of USG Boral Plasterboard from Germany-based Knauf in light of the fact that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is ‘unlikely to approve the call option in relation to the Australia and New Zealand business.’ The call option would have given Knauf the right to return to 50% ownership of USG Boral Plasterboard within five years. The ACCC’s likely intervention in the transaction is believed to have to do with Boral’s financial situation.

Australia/US: USG-Boral will resume 100% ownership of its Australia and New Zealand gypsum wallboard operations, subject to a call option for Knauf to buy back 50% within five years.

Boral CEO Michael Kane has commended Boral’s Sheetrock brand’s substantially strengthened position by comparison to that at the time of Knauf’s US$7bn acquisition of USG in April 2019, since which time Knauf has held 50% of USG-Boral’s gypsum wallboard business in Australia and New Zealand.

Boral will continue its joint operations with Knauf across Asia, at the centre of which are USG-Boral Asia’s purchase of Knauf Asian Plasterboard for US$533m, and its sale of its Middle Eastern ventures to Knauf for US$50m.

Australia: Boral says that it may be ready to announce its plans with its USG Boral joint venture in August 2019. It is currently conducting due diligence on the joint venture’s operations in Asia following Knauf’s acquisition of USG in early 2019, according to the Australian newspaper. Forward options include established a new Asian joint-venture with Knauf or buying USG Boral’s gypsum wallboard business in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and islands in the South West Pacific. However, Boral’s chief executive officer (CEO) Mike Kane said that there might not be enough time to arrange a deal by the publication of Boral’s full year results in August 2019.