Gypsum industry news

New Zealand: Fletcher Building Materials recorded consolidated sales of US$5.37bn during its 2022 financial year, up by 4.7% year-on-year from US$5.13bn in the previous year. Its net earnings also rose by 42%, to US$273m from US$193m.

The group's building materials division, which includes Winstone Wallboards, contributed US$1.02bn-worth (17%) of group sales. The business delivered 'strong' volumes, with pricing initiatives effectively offsetting cost inflation. The latter particularly impacted imports of raw materials. The business made capital expenditure investments of US$129m, of which US$98.4m went towards the construction of Winstone Wallboards' upcoming Tauriko gypsum wallboard plant in the Bay of Plenty region. The plant's commissioning in 2023 will increase the company's production capacity by 30% and reduce its CO₂ emissions and waste generation.

Fletcher Building Materials chief executive officer Ross Taylor said "The 2022 financial year has not been without its challenges. Global and national supply chain disruptions have continued into the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic. In New Zealand, surging plasterboard orders following the first quarter lockdown outstripped our ability to supply, despite our manufacturing facilities running at record levels. In recognition of our key role as a local manufacturer in keeping the market supplied, we carried out a range of measures to address the shortage including operating production lines 24/7, running down inventory, importing additional product, and establishing an emergency supply pool." Taylor added "The New Zealand Commerce Commission recently published its interim market study report into residential building supplies. The final report and recommendations will be published in December 2022 and in the meantime we will continue to work collaboratively with both the commission and the government."

UK: Etex subsidiary Siniat says that its upcoming second gypsum wallboard plant at its Bristol site will help it to achieve 30% post-consumer gypsum recycling in its UK wallboard production by 2025. The new plant is scheduled for commissioning in 2023. The producer secured its supply of recycled gypsum from local waste management subsidiary Crucible Gypsum Recycling in 2020. The plant will also supply some of its water consumption from rainwater harvesting on-site. Electric charging stations will eventually support a 100% electric forklift fleet at the site.

Siniat will also invest Euro11,900 towards cycle and pedestrian paths to improve access to the Bristol site.

Canada: USG subsidiary CGC plans to build a US$160m gypsum wallboard plant in Wheatland County, near Calgary in Alberta. The Government of Alberta and Invest Alberta Corporation will support the project with around US$3m from the Investment and Growth Fund. It is also set to benefit from local tax benefits. The new unit is expected to create over 100 new jobs once it is operational. Plant construction is scheduled to begin in 2023.

“Our customers in Western Canada have said they want a more efficient way to access our CGC wallboard products they’ve been buying for over 100 years. Shipping our products from Eastern Canadian or American manufacturing plants no longer meets their growing demand,” said Chris Griffin, President and chief executive officer of USG Corporation.

The proposed plant’s kiln will be powered using gas. Renewable electricity will be provided by an onsite solar power farm. The unit will also be the company’s first plant in Canada built with the technology to manufacture USG Sheetrock Brand EcoSmart Panels.

US-based USG became a subsidiary of Germany-based Knauf in 2019.

Uzbekistan: Germany-based Knauf has launched a new 17Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant at Fergana. The unit can also produce 40,000t/yr of dry building mixes. The project had an investment of just under Euro19m. It is the company’s third production plant in the country.

US: CertainTeed has completed an upgrade to the grinding control technology at its gypsum wallboard plant at Buchanan in New York state. The new variable frequency drive at the site can vary the speed at which raw gypsum is ground and save energy accordingly. It is expected to reduce the plant’s energy consumption by nearly 700,000kWh/yr. Other recent sustainable upgrades at the plant include the installation of 2.4MW solar array on its roof in 2018.

Parent company Saint-Gobain North America has announced a number of sustainability-focused upgrade projects at its wallboard plants so far in 2022. These include switching to renewable energy at its Montreal plant in Quebec, using recycled materials at its Nashville plant in Arkansas and installing a waste heat recovery system at its Vancouver plant in British Colombia.

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.