Gypsum industry news

New Zealand: The New Zealand government has announced the lifting of Level 4 lockdown outside of Auckland. Radio New Zealand News has reported that this will enable construction to resume. Inside Auckland, gypsum wallboard is among four ‘critical products’ that the government has allowed to resume production.

The Building Industry Federation (BIF) said that the government had listened to suppliers' concerns.

Spain: Saint-Gobain Placo has launched a new technical manual on environmental certifications of buildings. The Saint-Gobain subsidiary says that the manual will help professionals when addressing all certification requirements in Spanish construction. It takes a practical approach and details all processes and evidence necessary for each certificate. The company hopes to advance sustainable development by facilitating more comprehensive planning.

Australia: Boral recorded consolidated sales of US$3.87bn in the 2021 financial year, down by 6.7% from US$4.14bn in the 2020 financial year. It recorded a net profit of US$463m, compared to a loss of US$828m in the 2020 financial year.

CEO and managing director Zlatko Todorcevski said “Our full-year 2021 financial year results reflect the mixed market conditions we are continuing to experience in Australia during the pandemic. The value of total construction work was lower than the prior year, including in multi-residential, non-residential and infrastructure construction. Several major projects were completed during the period, with others delayed before new projects come on-line and reach materials intensity. While a lift in detached housing provided a boost to activity during the year, Boral’s earnings are predominantly exposed to construction activity outside of residential.”

He added “We have made substantial progress in our strategy to transform Boral into a stronger, better performing, more customer-focused organisation, with a core portfolio of businesses that deliver value throughout the cycle. Over the past year, we have progressed the divestments of several non-core assets, including completing the divestment of our interest in the USG Boral joint venture and announcing the sale of North America Building Products, achieving sale prices well above expectation. With total proceeds of almost US$3.25bn from completed and announced divestments to date, our strategy to focus Boral on the core Australian construction materials business is well advanced. And following a detailed assessment of strategic options for our North American Fly Ash business, we are now entering the final stages of a divestment of this business.”

France: Saint-Gobain’s sales in the first quarter of 2020 fell by 9.8% year-on-year, to Euro9.36bn from Euro10.4bn. Sales fell in all regions except the Americas, where they rose by 4.8% to Euro1.37bn from Euro1.31bn. The company said that coronavirus decreased demand in Asian and the Pacific in February 2020 and Southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa in March 2020. Northern European sales were only affected in the UK in the last week of March 2020. The company predicted that demand would increase globally in the second quarter of 2020 given that construction has been deemed an essential industry in most countries.