Gypsum industry news

Uzbekistan: The Committee for the Development of Competition and Protection of Consumer Rights has classified Knauf Gips Buxoro as a ‘dominant company’ in the gypsum wallboard market. An analysis by the committee ascertained that the producer’s market share exceeds 40%. The designation will require Knauf to conform to specific rules regarding pricing, supply and conditions that affect competition.

Turkmenistan: Ak Bulut has inaugurated its 4Mm²/yr Dostluk gypsum wallboard plant in the Koytendag District of Lebap Region. Trend News has reported that the plant partly runs on solar power, and also produces 50,000t/yr of dry building mixes. Ak Bulut says that it sources the plant's natural gypsum from Koytendag District, and markets its products domestically and in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Uzbekistan.

China: BNBM’s operating income fell by 6% year-on-year to US$2.90bn in 2022 from US$3.07bn in 2021. Its net profit dropped by 11% to US$457m from US$511m. Parent company China New Building Material (CNBM) reported that its sales volumes of gypsum wallboard declined by 12% to 2.09Bnm² from 2.38Bnm². It noted that, despite prices for raw materials and energy increasing in 2022, the poor local real estate market had led to a decline in demand for wallboard. It added that performance in Tanzania had grown in the reporting year and that new projects in Uzbekistan and Thailand remained on track. The group said that its 50 gypsum wallboard production lines had achieved “nearly zero emissions” in 2022.

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.

China: BNBM’s operating income grew by 25% to US$3.33bn in 2021 from US$2.66bn in 2020. Its net profit rose by 23% to US$554m from US$451m. Its production and sales volumes of gypsum wallboard increased by 19% to 2.43Bnm² and 18% to 2.38Bnm² respectively. It reported a gypsum wallboard production capacity utilisation rate of 78%. The group added that data from the Gypsum Building Materials Branch of China Building Materials Federation showed that national wallboard production capacity was 4.90Bnm²/yr and that production and sales were 3.51Bnm² in 2021.

Parent company CNBM separately reported that the group raised its average wallboard selling prices by 7%. It said it put up its prices in the reporting period due to high prices of coal, gypsum, paper and other raw materials. Internationally, the group said that a new wallboard plant in Tanzania had started operation in 2021 and that a new plant in Uzbekistan is still being built.

Uzbekistan: The government has shared plans for the establishment of a new building materials production cluster in Bukhara Region. Activities within the cluster will include gypsum extraction.

BNBM has announced two overseas gypsum wallboard plants since the start of 2022. In Early January 2022 the China-based producer said it was going to build a 40Mm²/yr plant in Thailand as part of a joint-venture with Sinoma International Engineering and its subsidiary Sinoma (Thailand). Notably the unit is also to be equipped with a decorative gypsum line. The estimated project investment is US$55m. Then, in February 2022 BNBM revealed plans to build a 40Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant in Bosnia & Herzegovina. This one is a joint venture with Rudnik i Termoelektrana Ugljevik (RiTE Ugljevik), a subsidiary of the local state-run power company. The project will be situated next to the coal-fired power plant at Ugljevik. No surprises then for what source of raw gypsum the wallboard plant is likely to be using! The estimated project cost is Euro50m.

These two projects join a pair of other plants the producer is also cooking up internationally. In mid-2019 it revealed new wallboard plants in Tanzania and Uzbekistan. The former is a 15Mm²/yr plant to be run via a subsidiary. It was reported to be in a construction phase in mid-2021. The latter is a 40Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant to be built in the Kokand Free Economic Zone, Fergana Region in Uzbekistan via a wholly-owned subsidiary. So far it is reportedly in the preparation stage. The company also has a number of wallboard plant projects in development at home in China, including plants currently being built at Shuozhou in Shanxi province and Yichang in Hubei province.

During the first half of 2021, BNBM’s operating income rose by 46% year-on-year to US$1.59bn from US$1.09bn. 65% of this was generated from its gypsum wallboard business sales. Overall, parent company CNBM reported gypsum wallboard sales of 2.01Bm2 in 2020 from BNBM and Taishan Gypsum.

A subsidiary of CNBM building production capacity outside of China will sound familiar to those readers who follow the cement industry. The industry has been using the Belt and Road Initiative to move redundant domestic capacity abroad as the local market has become saturated and environmental measures bite. Chinese cement production capacity per capita has seemed extraordinarily high by international norms over the last 20 years. Yet, gypsum wallboard production capacity per capita is a wildly different story. Global Gypsum Directory 2021 data suggests that the US had a rate of 12.7m²/capita compared to 2.4m²/capita in China.

With this in mind it makes one wonder why BNBM is bothering internationally given the market scope at home as China meets its climate commitments. As the move by some western multinational building material companies over the last year or so suggests, the future may lie in light building materials. On the other hand BNBM/CNBM may simply have its eye on the bigger picture. Just like its international competitors, it doesn’t want to miss out on the opportunity for market enlargement or being left behind if the ratio between heavy and light building materials switches. If it really means business, then the next steps could be wallboard plants in Western Europe or even the US. A US-based joint-venture for BNBM might help to make everyone forget the unending legal debacle with Taishan’s imports.

Uzbekistan: Knauf has announced plans for a second gypsum wallboard production line in Bukhara, Bukhara region. The plans also include an investment of Euro2.2m in an additional gypsum mixture line at its Bukharagips plant, also in Bukhara, which produces dry building mixes. Trend News has reported that Knauf is currently Uzbekistan’s leading producer of gypsum wallboard, which it sells on the Uzbek, Afghan and Turkmen markets.

Uzbekistan: Germany’s Knauf has increased the production capacity of its Bukhara wallboard plant by 40% to 33.5Mm²/yr. This follow an investment of Euro16m in mid-2018, according to the Uzbekistan National News Agency. Knauf was previously reported to be considering building another gypsum wallboard plant in the country.

Uzbekistan: Knauf holds a 70% share in the gypsum wallboard market. The German building materials producer sold 22.8Mm² of wallboard in 2017, according to the Trend News Agency. It increased the production capacity of its Bukhara wallboard plant in mid-2018 by 30% with an investment of US$22m. Knauf is also planning to build another wallboard plant in the country with an investment of over US$20m. This project is currently at the design stage.