Gypsum industry news

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.

France: Workers at Placoplâtre’s gypsum quarry in Baillet-en-France near Paris went on strike in late January 2022 following a breakdown in negotiations with management. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union has cited disagreements over changes to shift patterns, safety concerns and poor equipment, according to the Le Parisien newspaper. Placoplâtre responded that discussions are ongoing. A worker died at the mine in 2019 when a gallery roof collapsed.

Spain: Knauf has received a 30 year extension to its quarrying permit supporting its Escuzar wallboard plant in Granada. The company also plans to increase production capacity at the unit, according to Europa Press. The plant was established in 2008 and it has a capacity of 50Mm²/yr.

US: American Gypsum has received a licence from the Eagle County Board of Commissioners for the expansion of its 336ha Eagle County opencast gypsum mine near Gypsum, Colorado by 12% to 376ha. The Vail Daily newspaper has reported that the expansion will secure the company’s nearby gypsum wallboard plant’s raw material supply until 2046.

Plant manager Chuck Zaruba said “As the state continues to grow, we are an essential product for that to occur.” He added that the producer’s local operations provide more than 100 year-round jobs.

Canada: The Canadian Gypsum Company (CGC) has temporarily closed part of its wallboard plant in Hagarsville in Ontario due to a coronavirus outbreak amongst its employees. Around half of the 250-strong workforce at the site has been sent home, according to the Norfolk & Tillsonburg News. The plant’s mine has also been closed. The company said it had acted "out of an abundance of caution" and it is working with local health services.

Spain: Saint-Gobain Placo has sent its first load of gypsum for 2021 to Montréal in Canada. The shipment consisted of 80,000t of natural gypsum from the company’s Almería quarry. It said that it previously expanded port facilities at Almería to facilitate shipments of this kind. It added that the shipment ‘consolidates the Almería-Montréal trade route,’ supporting the positioning of the Port of Almería as a strategic axis in international maritime trade.

Australia: Albacutya Gypsum, based in Victoria, has been embroiled in confusion surrounding a five-day snap coronavirus lockdown in the state. The agricultural gypsum business, which operates from a quarry in Rainbow, was forced to temporarily close in mid-February 2021 due to uncertainty over whether it was an essential service or not, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. However, local farmers, who are deemed ‘essential’ continued to require the product. The owners say the closure cost them around US$15,000 in lost income.

US: The Bureau of Land Management has approved American Gypsum’s proposal to expand its gypsum mine at Eagle, Colorado by around 40 hectares. The current quarry has been in operation since 1984. The mine and associated Eagle gypsum wallboard plant near Gypsum produce around 60Mm2/yr of wallboard and employ nearly 100 people. American Gypsum is the fifth largest producer of gypsum wallboard in North America, operating four wallboard plants.

US: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will be receiving public comment until 6 Feb 2020 on Eagle Materials' proposed 100 acre expansion of its 830 acre mine near Gypsum in Eagle County, Colorado. The mine supplies gypsum to its 67Mm2-capacity Eagle Materials gypsum wallboard plant in gypsum. BLM Colorado River Valley field manager Larry Sandoval said, “Responsible mineral development is part of BLM’s multiple-use mission,” according to RealVail newspaper.

Chile: Germany’s Knauf plans to invest US$11m towards increasing the rate of gypsum extraction at a quarry its subsidiary Yesos Andinos operates at the Rubí deposit, in in San José del Maipo, Cordillera Province. The company said in an Environmental Impact Study (EIA) that it wants to raise extraction to 0.4Mt/yr, according to ValorFuturo. At present it is restricted to 35,000t/yr at the site.