UK: Eastern Waste Disposal Ltd has won a Euro0.85m multiple awardees contract award from Essex County Council to provide services for the collection and recycling of gypsum.

According to the description, "In accordance with its duties under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Essex County Council sought services in relation to the collection and recycling of waste gypsum and tyres sourced from recycling centres for household waste in Essex and waste collection authority/waste disposal authority premises, including transfer stations, in Essex."

The contract period will be 21 months from October 2011 until June 2013 with options for the council to extend.

Canada: USG has announced that it permanently closing the Fundy Gypsum mine in Hantsport, Nova Scotia. 50 people were working at the mine until it was idled earlier in 2011. The Hantsport mine had been producing gypsum since 1934.

Robert Williams, spokesman for USG, said that the decision to close is a direct result of weak demand for USG's flagship wallboard Sheetrock® in the United States. because of the ongoing housing recession. He said being a stand-alone mine an expensive freighter ride away from USG's four US manufacturing plants also hurt the Hantsport mine's viability. Williams said finding another buyer will be difficult.

"The main use for gypsum is gypsum wallboard,"' he said. "It is unlikely that anyone else would have an appetite for it."

The company once employed hundreds of people and spent US$50m in the 1990s to upgrade the Hantsport operation.

France: Lafarge, the French building materials giant, has announced plans to restructure the group along national lines instead of product types. The move will be implanted from the start of 2012 and was described by Lafarge as 'the natural next step' following its geographical expansion and its recent refocusing on cement, aggregates and concrete. This has become more pertinent following the disposal of most of its gypsum activities, with only North America the only area in which it still has gypsum operations. The aim of the project is to increase Lafarge's differentiation through the development of higher value-added products and solutions for construction.

Bruno Lafont, chief executive at Lafarge, said that the project may have a 'limited' impact on staff numbers. "It is premature to speak of the consequences in terms of employment," said Lafont. "If there is an impact, we think it will be limited." Lafarge previously said that it would remove a layer of management at the 'regional' level as part of the reorganisation

US: Gypsum consumption in the US has declined steeply in the past five years according to data released from the US Geological Survey, falling by over 50% from 41.6Mt in 2006 to just 19.4Mt in 2010. However, following an announcement that housing starts will increase by 15% in 2012 from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), gypsum demand is expected to finally rise.

The increase in housing starts and associated increase in gypsum wallboard demand is forecast to cause an increase in gypsum wallboard prices, with National Gypsum Properties, a North Carolina-based provider of wallboard and related products, announcing plans to raise its prices by 35% from 1 January 2012. Other suppliers and manufacturers may follow suit.

Craig Weisbruch, National Gypsum's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said that manufacturers expect to sell about 17bn ft² of wallboard in 2011, down from 38bn ft² in 2006. "We're changing the nature of the game here," he said. "I don't know if it will work or not, but we're all losing money. The amount of product we're shipping is so little we just can't cover our costs."