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.
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.
Romania: Belgium-based Etex invested Euro1m on upgrades to the logistics capacities of its Turceni gypsum wallboard plant and its Aghiresu plaster plant. It also started work on a Euro6m sludge drying unit at coal-fired power plant in Oltenia that will supply synthetic gypsum for use at Turceni, according to See News. The company operates locally under the Siniat Romania brand. It reported a 20% year-on-year rise in turnover to Euro59.6m in 2021.
