Gypsum industry news

Canada: CertainTeed Canada plans to close its McAdam gypsum wallboard plant in New Brunswick by the end of February 2021. It said that the decision was made after ‘an extensive review of our business,’ according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). 50 employees are expected to lose their jobs, although the subsidiary of France-based Saint-Gobain says it will try to find roles at other CertainTeed and Saint-Gobain plants for them.
Production will stop at the unit at the end of August 2020. The plant will then continue using inventory until February 2021 with a skeleton staff. The plant was reported to be operating at 22 – 25% production capacity. The closure has been blamed on a decline for wallboard products in the Atlantic Canada region and elsewhere.

Canada: Red Moon Resources says it has restarted production for the season at its Ace mine in western Newfoundland. Overall production at the site in 2020 is expected to be less than in 2019 due to disruption to both operations and markets caused by coronavirus. The situation is expected to stabalise in 2021. The company mined 0.16Mt of gypsum and anhydrite from the site in 2019.

UK: Matt Pullen, the managing director of British Gypsum, says that the company intends to loosen restrictions on wallboard sales in August 2020. “Whilst we continue to see high levels of demand, we have sufficient capacity to supply your wallboard requirements without formal supply restrictions,” said Pullen. He added that the company’s plaster manufacturing plants continue to, ‘operate consistently at maximum capability.’

Gypsum plaster-based products have been in short supply in the UK since the local coronavirus-related lockdown started in March 2020. The subsidiary of Saint-Gobain suspended operations in April 2020 and Knauf stopped production at its wallboard plants in the UK at the end of March 2020. British Gypsum reported in late May 2020 that its wallboard capacity was at ‘approximately’ 80% of pre-coronavirus pandemic levels following the scaling up of its ‘Covid-19 safe’ operations and distribution plan. Etex’s Siniat said it was ending product allocation controls in early July 2020.

Spain: The Port of Carboneras has reported the movement of a total of 350,000t of gypsum by importers and exporters in the first five months of 2020, up by 4% year-on-year from 337,000t over the corresponding period of 2019. Gypsum was the only product to experience an increase, with coal volumes over the period falling by 96% and cement volumes by 55% due to the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on construction and other industries.

US: The Bureau of Land Management has approved American Gypsum’s proposal to expand its gypsum mine at Eagle, Colorado by around 40 hectares. The current quarry has been in operation since 1984. The mine and associated Eagle gypsum wallboard plant near Gypsum produce around 60Mm2/yr of wallboard and employ nearly 100 people. American Gypsum is the fifth largest producer of gypsum wallboard in North America, operating four wallboard plants.