Gypsum industry news

Ireland/UK: Belgium-based Etex has appointed Oliver Cripps as its Head of Sustainability, UK and ireland to support its brands, including Siniat. His role will be to push the company’s sustainability agenda, heighten the environmental credentials of its operations and products and decrease reliance on raw materials.

Cripps has worked for 25 years in the sustainability sector in industries including tourism, land management and manufacturing. His previous jobs include Senior Sustainability Manager at Dyson Technology, where he led sustainability for the New Product Innovation and Research teams, and experience working with global furniture manufacturer, MillerKnoll to support research and development and corporate sustainability.

France: Etex subsidiary Siniat plans to install a new boiler, fired by either solid recovered fuel (SRF) or waste wood, at its Auneuil gypsum wallboard plant in Oise Department. The producer expects this to reduce the plant's gas consumption by 20%. The L'Usine Nouvelle newspaper has reported that the project is part of a planned Euro30m sustainability overhaul of equipment at the plant before 2026. Siniat recently brought the Auneuil plant back online following the installation of a new Euro15m dryer in early 2023, which increased wallboard drying times by 10% and reduced gas consumption by 20%. The producer said that this has eliminated 5900t/yr of CO₂ emissions.

From the remaining Euro3m of its allotted budget for sustainability upgrades, Siniat will build a gypsum recycling plant at the Auneuil gypsum wallboard plant. It currently receives its recycled gypsum from Ritleng Revalorisations' gypsum recycling plant in Rohr, Bas-Rhin Department. Currently, natural gypsum from the Le Pin-Villeparisis and Montmorency mines accounts for 40 - 60% of the Auneuil plant' gypsum consumption.

Ukraine: A US White House official has accused the Wagner Group of conducting military operations near Bakhmut with the objective of seizing raw gypsum and salt deposits in the area. The official said that there were indications that monetary motives were driving the mercenary group and Russia’s "obsession" with the city, according to Reuters. The US government has previously accused Russian mercenaries of exploiting natural resources in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan to help fund Moscow's war in Ukraine. The Russian government has rejected the allegations.

Russia claims that its army took control of Soledar, a town near Bakhmut, on 13 January 2023. However, western European news sources have been unable to independently verify this. Etex’s local subsidiary Siniat Ukraine operated a gypsum wallboard plant on the outskirts of Bakhmut before Russia invaded the country in February 2022. The current status of the plant is unknown.

Earlier this month the German Gypsum Association (GIPS) gave its approval for an inventory of natural gypsum deposits in Germany that was presented at the Conference of Economics Ministers that took place in early July 2022. The Federal Commission on Geosciences (BLA-GEO) had previously been given the job of taking an inventory of deposits and this was then put in front of the policy makers. The association’s stance was all about securing future supplies. In its view there will be no large-scale alternatives to natural gypsum supplies in the foreseeable future due to low recycling rates and falling production of flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) gypsum as coal power plants are shut down. So a list of where natural gypsum might be found is the start of conversations about which ones might be mined. Readers who are interested can download the inventory of German gypsum deposits here.

Security of supply of raw materials has been in the air since the end of the coronavirus lockdowns started to cause supply chain disruption around the world and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further exacerbated this and rocked energy markets. Part of the reaction to this new reality could be seen in a conference that the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) and the German Resource Research Institute (GERRI) ran, also in early July 2022. The state of German gypsum supplies was presented at this event too. The BGR-GERRI conference came up with a ten-point plan to strengthen the supply of raw material. Some of these recommendations were to grow domestic raw material extraction, expand recycling and the circular economy and keep supply chains closer internationally, ideally within Germany and Europe.

A focus on gypsum supplies isn’t restricted to Germany though. The issue arose in late July 2022 during an earnings call for US-based Eagle Materials’ first quarter results. These kinds of questions from analysts about supply of raw materials are common for a public company but it reinforces the general declining trend around the world of synthetic gypsum supplies. Craig Kessler, the chief financial officer of Eagle Materials, mentioned that a scarcity of synthetic gypsum might be creating cost pressures for other gypsum wallboard producers. Although he was quick to describe his company as a “natural gas or natural gypsum oriented business.” The wider picture in the US is that the ratio of natural to synthetic gypsum production has grown over the last decade. United States Geological Survey (USGS) data shows that it was 37% / 49% in 2011 compared to 53% / 32% in 2021, with the remainder imported in each year.

One more point to make here is that many of the new gypsum wallboard plant projects announced in the over the last few months have involved recycling in one form or another. For example, Siniat’s forthcoming wallboard plant in Bristol in the UK aims to achieve 30% post-consumer gypsum recycling. CertainTeed’s current upgrade plans for its Palatka plant in Florida are also recycling-based. Similarly, the subsidiary of Saint-Gobain also completed an upgrade in June 2022 to allow more recycling at its Nashville plant in Arkansas.

Finally, some of the thinking in Germany and elsewhere has been influenced by the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine. However, one potential consequence of prolonged disruption to European energy markets could be a delay to the decline of coal power plants as plant lifespans are elongated or even new ones built. This in turn could mean more synthetic gypsum supplies in Europe in the short to medium term. How all of this plays out in the placement of new gypsum wallboard plants in Europe over the next few years will be interesting to observe.

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.

Belgium: ETEX recorded consolidated net sales of Euro2.97bn in 2021, up by 14% year-on-year from Euro2.62bn in 2020. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 12% to Euro522m from Euro468m, while its profit for the year dropped by 1.4% to Euro198m from Euro201m. The group’s building performance recorded like-for-like sales growth of 21% from 2020 levels and of 15% from 2019 levels. Its gypsum wallboard volumes grew year-on-year, while strong demand in all regions except South Africa impacted some export businesses through supply chain issues and increased shipping costs. The company adapted its prices to offset a sharp rise in raw material and energy cost prices.

During the year, ETEX acquired a top-three Australian gypsum wallboard producer and completed its rebranding as Siniat. It also diversified with the launch of a fourth group division, new ways, which includes light steel framing production operations.

UK: Etex has awarded a contract for construction of its new Euro167m Bristol gypsum wallboard plant in North Somerset to McLaughlin & Harvey. The plant will include a post-consumer gypsum recycling facility and is scheduled for commissioning in 2022.

UK: Belgium-based Etex has announced a new UK trading agreement with Kier, a provider of construction and infrastructure services.The arrangement will see Etex and Kier collaborate on a variety of new projects using Etex’s products, including its Siniat brand wallboard.

Gerard Cox, Head of Procurement for Kier Construction, added “We are excited to include Etex Building Performance to our carefully selected list of preferred supply chain partners and look forward to engaging with them on our projects where we believe their range of products, warrantied systems and customer focussed approach, have the potential to add real value to our business.”

Etex previously said it plans to start operations at its new wallboard plant at the Port of Bristol in 2022. It has invested around Euro165m in the project that is set to double its production capacity in the UK.

Romania: Siniat Romania increased its turnover by 6% year-on-year to Euro51.3m in 2020. It attributed this to a growing residential sector, higher demand for logistics spaces and the need for adapted office due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to See News. The subsidiary of Belgium-based Etex Group expects turnover to rise by 5 – 10% to around Euro56m in 2021.

"The construction market in Southeast Europe was one of the most resilient economic segments in 2020. The shock caused by the spring lockdown was followed by a rapid recovery and by an increase in the second half of the year," said Etex Building Performance commercial director Andrei Popa.

The company operates two gypsum wallboard plants in the country and it holds an estimated market share of over 25%. Almost half of the output of the two plants is exported to 11 countries in Southeast Europe.

UK: Etex Building Performance recycled 14% its Siniat gypsum wallboard products in 2019, a UK gypsum wallboard recycling record. The company says that the figure exceeds both the UK average of 8% in 2019 and the industry target of 10% in 2020. It attributed the achievement to its “substantial investments in operational improvements to reuse waste gypsum, which can also be recycled.”

The improvements consisted of an upgrade to gypsum wallboard production at the company’s Ferrybridge plant in West Yorkshire and the addition of a new recycling facility at the site. Its planned new gypsum wallboard plant in Bristol will be able to produce wallboard using a higher proportion of recycled gypsum and source part of its water intake from rain. The producer has additionally secured a dedicated supply of post-consumer gypsum from construction sites across England and Wales via its subsidiary Crucible Gypsum Recycling. It said it decided to form the subsidiary after taking part in the European Commission’s Gypsum to Gypsum research project, which “showed the importance of controlling the quality of post-consumer material and re-orientating the industry for the recovery of waste at the end of a building's lifecycle.”

Head of environment and sustainability Steve Hemmings said, "Recovering waste gypsum makes business as well as environmental sense. The plasterboard industry traditionally relied on quarried gypsum or desulphurised gypsum – the latter is becoming less available as the UK switches to alternative energy sources. Recycling offers a greener future for construction, but it requires investment and coordination across the supply chain. We're investing early to make sure we have the capability and capacity to continue leading the UK's gypsum wallboard sector and to provide more sustainable solutions for our clients.”