Gypsum industry news

Australia: Boral will repurchase up to US$182m of its shares after a string of divestments bolstered the company's balance sheet. It intends to buy back up to 5%, or about 39 million shares, of its issued capital on-market over the next 12 months.

Boral chief executive Mike Kane said that the completion of a number of transactions, including the US$127m sale of its Western Landfill business in Melbourne to Transpacific Industries, had allowed for the share repurchase.

"This buyback reflects Boral's commitment to efficient capital management and delivering improved returns to shareholders," said Kane. "At the same time, we are maintaining flexibility to respond to changes in market conditions and to take advantage of appropriate growth opportunities that may present in the future." Kane had already flagged acquisitions in Asia and North America and said that Boral was too unbalanced towards Australia.

Boral received US$500m as part of an agreement with USG Corporation to sell half of its Australasian wallboard assets into a joint venture. It is on target to receive further performance-based payments of up to US$57.7m over the next three years.

Boral was reportedly considering a sell-off of its building products division, but indicated it would instead look for savings through cost-reduction programs and joint ventures. A brickmaking joint venture with CSR will proceed after receiving approval from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, with the expectation of savings of between US$5.39 – 7.69m between Boral and CSR.

US: Gypsum Management and Supply (GMS) has signed an agreement to acquire Ohio Valley Building Products based in Wheeling, West Virginia. Ohio Valley Building Products, which supplies wallboard, ceiling products and insulation services, will be the 34th wholly-owned subsidiary of GMS. The deal marks the strategic entrance of GMS into West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

"We are excited about the addition of Ohio Valley to the GMS family," said Mike Anderson, vice president of the northeast region. "The greater Pittsburgh/Ohio Valley market has been of key interest to us for years. Eric Bayer and his team will be key to us growing in this market in the future."

"I am very excited to join with GMS," said Eric Bayer, president and owner of Ohio Valley Building Products. "We pride ourselves on providing excellent customer service and that fits well with GMS. We cannot wait to get started."

US: Taishan Gypsum Company Limited, which is a 65% held subsidiary of China National Building Materials' (CNBM) 45.2%-owned subsidiary Beijing New Building Material Public Limited Company (BNBM), has refused to participate in a Judgment Debtor Examination in the United States District Court of Louisiana.

Taishan Gypsum has been ordered to pay US$15,000 in attorney's fees, US$40,000 as a penalty for contempt and has been banned from conducting any business in the US as Taishan Gypsum or via its affiliates or subsidiaries until or unless it participates in the judicial process. If it violates the injunction, it will pay a further penalty of 25% of the profits earned for the year of violation.

Czech Republic/Germany: Claudius Peters has been awarded a contract from a German-Czech consortium for the delivery of a gypsum calcining plant with a capacity of 12.5t/hour for installation at a Czech power plant. Commissioning is planned for the beginning of 2016.

The scope of supply comprises a HIC (Horizontal Impact Calciner) to calcine flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) gypsum which has been ordered for the first time. The HIC has especially been developed for the calcination of synthetic gypsum. The material is further conditioned in a homogeniser with a capacity of 12.5t/hour. The material will be transported in tankers to Germany for further processing. This is the sixth homogeniser supplied by Claudius Peters.

Australia: Gypsum Supplies has started loading from its newest pit at Lake Cowcowing, Western Australia.

Gypsum Supplies operates at Lake Hillman in Dalwallinu, Western Australia, where the family-run business has been supplying gypsum since 1978 to the industrial and agricultural markets.

"We are continuing to operate out of Kalannie as normal," said registered manager Daniel Nixon. "This pit is of very similar quality and analysis to the Kalannie pit." Naturally-occurring lake gypsum has a medium particle size and unlike synthetic gypsum, is not subject to rapid leaching from the soil profile and reportedly has superior spreading characteristics.

Gypsum is used in the agricultural industry for several reasons. It is used as a low-cost non-acidifying form of sulphur. Kalannie gypsum has 17.8% sulphur. Due to the high returns from growing canola in recent years, demand for gypsum as a low-cost form of sulphur has been strong.