New Zealand: The government has established a taskforce to tackle the on-going national gypsum wallboard shortage. Scoop News has reported that the taskforce consists of industry experts. The body says that it will renew the focus on competition in the building materials sector. Minister for Building and Construction Megan Woods has written a letter to Winstone Wallboards' parent company Fletcher Building regarding trademark protections, specifically urging it not to take action on its product colour trademarks. The taskforce also plans to explore new distribution models and investigate the potential of new products in the New Zealand market.

Megan Woods said "The taskforce has a very clear aim: to increase sector productivity as quickly as possible, and to remove any unnecessary barriers, including around certification, to facilitate the use of different types of plasterboard."

US: Gypsum wallboard companies sold 629Mm² of gypsum wallboard in the first quarter of 2022, in line with first-quarter 2021 sales, according to US Geological Survey (USGS) figures. They exported 16.9Mm², up by 6% year-on-year from first-quarter 2021 volumes. Canada received 15Mm², 94% of exports. The US Census Bureau recorded gypsum wallboard imports of 22.2Mm², up by 28% year-on-year. Mexico supplied 19.1Mm² (86%), while Canada supplied 2.89Mm² (13%).

In the first quarter of 2022, national natural gypsum production was 5.33Mt, up by 2.1% year-on-year from 5.22Mt in the first quarter of 2021.

UK: Global Gypsum Magazine is ready for the Hillhead 2022 quarrying, construction and recycling show that takes place on 21 – 23 June 2022 taking place in Derbyshire. You can find Global Gypsum Magazine at stand PB14 in the Main Pavilion. The event was originally planned to take place in June 2021 but was postponed for one year following the UK coronavirus-related lockdowns. Held in a limestone quarry, the organisers say that it is the largest exhibition of its kind anywhere in the world.

New Zealand: Winstone Wallboards says it will increase the supply of gypsum wallboard available for distribution by merchants by 1Mm² from July to September 2022. It said this will equate to a 7 – 8% increase of various types of plasterboard.

Fletcher Building chief executive Ross Taylor said “The increases we will be bringing to market are possible because we will soon commission changes to the configuration of our manufacturing that we have been working on over the past three months which will produce extra, locally produced, volumes. We have also been able to secure and will import additional board from an Australian manufacturer that we can feed into our supply chain.” He added that the allocation model the company has introduced had started to help supply levels and that the completion of the new plant at Tauranga in June 2023 would also help.

In early June 2022 social housing developer Simplicity Living said it had cancelled all of its orders of Fletcher Building Gib board. In an interview with Stuff, Shane Brealey - the managing director of Simplicity Living, said that the company had decided to import wallboard instead. It said it could source equivalent wallboard products at a 20% discount or more. It added that it was taking it eight weeks to import wallboard from South-East Asia compared to eight months from Auckland.

Winstone Wallboards responded to the criticism by saying it previously had been importing wallboard from Etex Australia for around six months until the end of 2021. The arrangement ended as Australia also has a wallboard shortage. However, it added that the import arrangement might restart from August 2022 onwards.