Gypsum industry news

UK: Portugal-based Gypfor has agreed to sell its upcoming Newport gypsum wallboard plant to Germany-based Knauf. Gypfor began building the plant at Associated British Ports’ Port of Newport in March 2021. Knauf estimates that it will commission it later in 2022, and commence full operations in 2023. The plant will be equipped with solar and wind power plants, as well as on-site gypsum wallboard recycling facilities. 54 people will be employed in gypsum wallboard production at the site. Knauf says that the addition of the new plant to its existing facilities at Immingham, Lincolnshire, and Sittingbourne, Kent, will enlarge its UK capacity by 20%.

Knauf’s UK managing director Ian Stokes said “This new plant will significantly increase our ability to service customers throughout the UK, and particularly those in South Wales, the Midlands and the South-West of England. It is a very exciting move for Knauf and, following recent investment in increasing the capacity of Knauf Insulation, reflects the confidence of the Knauf Group in the UK construction sector.”

New Zealand: Winstone Wallboards says it will increase the supply of gypsum wallboard available for distribution by merchants by 1Mm² from July to September 2022. It said this will equate to a 7 – 8% increase of various types of plasterboard.

Fletcher Building chief executive Ross Taylor said “The increases we will be bringing to market are possible because we will soon commission changes to the configuration of our manufacturing that we have been working on over the past three months which will produce extra, locally produced, volumes. We have also been able to secure and will import additional board from an Australian manufacturer that we can feed into our supply chain.” He added that the allocation model the company has introduced had started to help supply levels and that the completion of the new plant at Tauranga in June 2023 would also help.

In early June 2022 social housing developer Simplicity Living said it had cancelled all of its orders of Fletcher Building Gib board. In an interview with Stuff, Shane Brealey - the managing director of Simplicity Living, said that the company had decided to import wallboard instead. It said it could source equivalent wallboard products at a 20% discount or more. It added that it was taking it eight weeks to import wallboard from South-East Asia compared to eight months from Auckland.

Winstone Wallboards responded to the criticism by saying it previously had been importing wallboard from Etex Australia for around six months until the end of 2021. The arrangement ended as Australia also has a wallboard shortage. However, it added that the import arrangement might restart from August 2022 onwards.

Romania: Belgium-based Etex invested Euro1m on upgrades to the logistics capacities of its Turceni gypsum wallboard plant and its Aghiresu plaster plant. It also started work on a Euro6m sludge drying unit at coal-fired power plant in Oltenia that will supply synthetic gypsum for use at Turceni, according to See News. The company operates locally under the Siniat Romania brand. It reported a 20% year-on-year rise in turnover to Euro59.6m in 2021.

Canada: Saint-Gobain plans to carry out a US$70.9m upgrade and 40% capacity expansion of its 30Mm²/yr Montreal gypsum wallboard plant in Quebec. The project includes the replacement of natural gas with renewable electricity and a 30% reduction in energy consumption through efficiency improvements. As a result, it will turn the facility into North America’s first zero-carbon gypsum wallboard plant. Work will commence in mid-2023, with the commissioning of the upgraded plant following in late 2024.

Saint-Gobain’s vice president environmental, social, governance (ESG) North America and managing director, circular economy solutions Dennis Wilson said "Today we begin a historic new chapter at our Montreal gypsum plant, leading our industry towards a more sustainable future while increasing our production capacity at a time of unprecedented customer demand," said. "We thank our partners in the Quebec Government, the City of Saint-Catherine and Hydro-Québec for their support, and we thank our team for pushing the limits of technology and imagination to bring this bold project to life. The electrification of our Montreal plant is a massive step forward in our broader goal to decarbonise construction materials and a significant step towards our global goal of carbon neutrality by 2050."

US: CertainTeed has completed a US$1.3m upgrade to its Nashville wallboard plant in Arkansas to use recycled waste gypsum and paper. The plant will reuse 65,000t/yr of waste materials generated from the production process. The company plans to increase the amount of recycled materials in its gypsum wallboard in the future.

“In Nashville and at our manufacturing sites around the world, we remain laser-focused on reducing waste, reducing our consumption of natural resources, and increasing recycling and circularity throughout our value chain,” said Jay Bachmann, Vice President and General Manager of CertainTeed Gypsum.

US: Georgia-Pacific has opened a new gypsum quarry near Sweetwater in Texas. The 240 hectare site is located next to a new unit being built at the company’s Sweetwater gypsum wallboard plant, according to the Sweetwater Reporter newspaper. Once operational, the quarry will supply the plant with around 2000t/day of raw gypsum.

The gypsum wallboard producer is currently building a new 65Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant adjacent to its existing 30Mm²/yr Sweetwater gypsum wallboard plant. Production at the new site is expected to start in late 2022.

Peru: Etex says that an upgrade to its Huachipa gypsum wallboard plant is currently being built and should be operational by mid-2023. It is intended to double the production capacity of the unit, according to the Gestión newspaper. The company has invested Euro36m in the project.

Etex markets its wallboard under the Gyplac brand locally. Robert Haanschoten Rodríguez, Etex’s Andean Region Marketing Manager, said that the country exhibits a strong self-build market. Gypsum wallboard sales represent 20 – 25% of the group’s sales in the country. Since 2018 sales of wallboard have grown by 50%. The country reportedly has a wallboard consumption of 0.7m²/capita compared to 4m²/capita in Chile. However, increases in the cost of raw materials have led Etex to put its product prices up by 5 – 12% across all lines.

Russia: Volma has reported increased demand for gypsum wallboard as well as other products including its plasters in the first quarter of 2022. It says it has compensated for economic sanctions imposed by countries in European Union by raising exports to countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States although its key market remains in Russia. However, it fixed its prices in March 2022 to support the local construction sector. In 2021 the building materials company invested around Euro7m towards upgrading its plants. One of the largest projects was the installation at its Voskresensk plant of a new gypsum furnace, which it says it the largest in Europe.

Germany: Gypsum products manufacturer CASEA has ordered a Robotpac type robotic palletiser from Beumer due to increased demand for its products. The new palletiser will be equipped with a fork gripper and a pallet gripping device will be used for handling special product mixtures. Delivery of the order is planned for the third quarter of 2022. CASEA already uses a Beumer palletiser at its Dorste plant in Osterode am Harz, which was installed in 2017.

Kazakhstan: Alina Group plans to invest US$112,000 in the construction of a gypsum wallboard ‘mini factory’ in Almaty Region. Kazakhstan Newsline has reported that the company expects to commission the facility in 2022. The group is already engaged in the construction of two building materials plants in the region, at a total investment cost of US$35.9m.