Gypsum industry news

Chile: El Volcan, a company owned by Matte Group and Saint-Gobain, plans to spend up to US$50m on building a new gypsum wallboard plant in Puente Alto. The builder's merchant intends to upgrade an existing production site to produce wallboard and plaster, according to the El Mercurio newspaper. Permits have been secured for the project and the plant is expected to be ready by early 2018. The company also intends to start selling its full range of products in Peru.

France: Environmental concerns have been raised about Placoplatre's plans to develop a open-cast gypsum quarry at Fort de Vaujours near Paris. The site is believed to contain enough high-end gypsum for the Saint-Gobain subsidiary's nearby wallboard plant and for other plants in the group, according to Deutsche Welle. However, environmentalists have raised the risks of excavating a site near to the capital of France that was used for nuclear testing between the 1950s and 1990s.

"It's important to maintain our plant. We employ 400 people at the factory which generates 3000 indirect jobs and an additional average 1000 workers will be operating at the industrial site," said Gilles Bouchet, Placoplatre's head of mining development. He added that the wallboard producer has conducted impact and radiation studies that have been submitted to the French nuclear safety body ASN.

Christophe Nedelec, president of environmental non-government organisation Gagny-Les Abbesses-Chelles has queried the efficacy of Placoplatre's tests and has called for an independent body to conduct them.

UK: British Gypsum has released plans to use natural gypsum instead of synthetic gypsum at its Sherburn-in-Elmet wallboard plant in North Yorkshire. The company wants to extend its mill building to aid the conversion as well as make some minor logistical changes at the site. The details were released as part of a planning application made to the local council, according to the York Press. If approved, British Gypsum says that the conversion will safeguard 130 jobs at the plant.

According to the planning statement, the current forecast for synthetic gypsum supply to the Sherburn plant projects that in late 2017 or early 2018, the plant's ability to continue manufacturing would be under threat. The plant is currently unable to grind natural gypsum rock on-site and operates solely on the use of desulphurised gypsum supplied from the Drax Power Station. The statement claims adequate and appropriate infrastructure is in place to meet the needs of the proposed development, including appropriate drainage to ensure there would be no increased risk of flooding from surface water run-off. It adds that the proposed development will be energy efficient and minimise energy consumption.

UK: Knauf has ordered a second Samson Material Feeder for its Immingham gypsum wallboard plant. The 100t/hour feeder is to be supplied in October 2017 and it has a centre distance of 11.7m. Knauf is extending an existing raw materials reception area, where products arriving by truck are transferred directly by the feeder to an ongoing conveyor to the production facility.

The Samson Feeder presents an alternative to fixed bunker constructions and can receive bulk materials directly from diggers or dumper trucks. The wide conveyor belt design allows a very low loading height so that trucks can discharge directly into the entry section of the unit. Therefore the bulk material can be unloaded and transferred to the plant straight away, with no requirement for interim storage on arrival. If continuous discharge to an ongoing conveyor is not required at any given time, the bulk material can also be stored in the Samson unit.

Peru: Eternit plans to re-launch its image to better target the local construction sector. The aim of the marketing re-launch is to increase sales of gypsum wallboard and fibre cement the country, according to an interview with CEO Fegale Manzur in the Gestion newspaper. The two lines represent half of the company's sales driven by its US$77m Huachipa plant that was built in 2015.