Displaying items by tag: Ukraine
Mexico: The price of gypsum and its derivatives has risen by up to 12% in April 2022 compared to pre-Russian invasion of Ukraine levels. Along with a rise in the price of other materials, this has increased the cost of new house builds by 25 – 30%.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reported that Russia was previously Mexico’s 35th largest trade partner.
Volma fixes prices for key customers
18 March 2022Russia: Volma says it fixed its product prices for key customers from mid-March 2022. Vladimir Ovchintsev, the general director of Volma, said, “Sometimes it is worth making decisions that are not so beneficial for business, but extremely important for supporting our partners.” He added that the company would lose profitability but that the company viewed it as strategically important to support the construction sector. He added that the decision was important in ‘unpredictable and changeable’ conditions.
ETEX suspends all operations in Russia
11 March 2022Russia: Belgium-based ETEX has announced the suspension of all of its Russian activities ‘immediately and until further notice.’ The gypsum wallboard producer operates two sites for the import and sale of fibre cement façade materials near Moscow. It says that it will take care of the 50 colleagues it employs there.
The group said “We will continue to do everything we can for the safety and well-being of all our teammates and hope that peace will prevail quickly.”
Knauf has no plans to leave Russian market
04 March 2022Russia/Ukraine: Jörg Schanow, a member of the management board of Knauf, says that the company has no plans to leave the Russian market. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper he said that Russian production sites were still running as normal.
The company has set up crisis management team since the start of the war in Ukraine in late February 2022. It has been meeting daily and discussing the situation with local management in Russia. Schanow said that the biggest business problem so far was the effect of US and European economic sanctions upon Russian banks and the consequences upon moving money between banks, suppliers and customers. The Germany-based company employees 3900 staff at 14 sites in Russia. It originally purchased a gypsum plant at Krasnogorsk near Moscow in 1993.
Knauf also has operations in Ukraine. It closed its gypsum wallboard plant in Donbass in response to the current war on 24 February 2022 ‘as a precaution,’ according to the TZ newspaper. The staff were sent home and the plant will remain closed into further notice. The plant had 589 employees at the end of 2021, none of whom where German nationals.
Cyber attack likely to have limited effect on Saint-Gobain’s half-year financial results
13 July 2017France: Saint-Gobain says that a cyber attack that hit its operations in late June 2017 is unlikely to negatively affect its first-half financial results by more than 1%. It is still investigating the impact of the incident and will report more fully in its results on 27 July 2017.
The building materials producer added that it had restored its remaining operations still 'experiencing difficulties' back to normal. It said that since early July 2017 the 'vast majority' of its businesses had been operating normally and that no personal data was disclosed to any third party. It does not expect the event to have any future commercial impact.
Saint-Gobain affected by cyberattack
28 June 2017France: Saint-Gobain has been hit by a cyberattack. The building materials producer said that it subsequently isolated its systems in order to protect its data. It added that its production lines were continuing to operate and that it was still serving its clients. It is not known whether the company has been infected with the Petya ransonware virus. However, the company operates a gypsum wallboard plant in Ukraine, where that attack was first reported on 27 June 2017.
Ukraine: Saint-Gobain plans to build a gypsum wallboard plant in the Tlumach district of the Ivano-Frankivsk region. The Euro65m project includes the construction of two building materials units in the area, according to Interfax. A construction materials plant is scheduled for completion at the end of 2017 followed by a wallboard plant by early 2018. Both plants will be located near to the Khotymyr gypsum deposit. The new units are expected to create around 300 jobs.
Knauf suspends work due to rail problems
14 October 2016Ukraine: Knauf Gips Kyiv, part of Germany's Knauf, has suspended wallboard production because of difficulties with rail traffic, according to Knauf's local marketing and sales director Oleksandr Starchenko. He told Interfax-Ukraine that the Kyiv plant has been forced to suspend operations due to a lack of rolling stock on the railway for the supply of finished products from the Knauf Gips Donbas factory, which is located in Soledar, Donetsk region.
"The situation now is not just bad, it is catastrophically bad," explained Starchenko. "Bad is when at least something works. Catastrophic is when nothing works. This is not only my opinion, this is the view of the market. The result of the situation is the fact that the Kyiv factory halts activities because we cannot bring in materials."
"We have two enterprises here. One of them is in the east, close to the combat zone. However, it works and is one of the largest ones in Europe," he said, noting that the company has limited ability to supply goods produced at Knauf Gips Donbas to customers by rail.
Ukraine gypsum export figures
01 July 2011Ukraine: Gross gypsum exports in the first five months of 2011 amounted to 27056 tons, bringing in USD2.01m. In May the country exported 6946t of gypsum, worth USD658,000. The values represent a 23% decrease in tonnage compared to the same period of 2010 and a financial decrease of 54.4%. May 2011 brought in 50.2% less than May 2010 in financial terms.
The leading exporters of gypsum in May 2011 were Knauf Gips Donbass LLC, Gipsovik OJSC, Ivano-Frankovsjiy Cement, Slate Combine OJSC and Mamalyzhskiy Gypsum Plant OJSC. The leading importer was Budfarfor Slavutsk Combine CJSC.