Gypsum industry news
USG first quarter 2014 profit up 25 April 2014
US: USG Corp has reported a surge in profit for the first quarter of 2014, primarily on increased shipments and higher selling prices.
Chief executive officer James Metcalf said, "Despite the harsh winter conditions across most of the US during the first quarter of 2014, we delivered positive operating results and net income."
USG said that its US gypsum wallboard shipments rose to 1.15Bnft2 (107Bnm2) from 1.11Bnft2 (103Bnm2), while average wallboard prices climbed to US$166.66/1000ft2 from US$153.07/1000ft2 in 2013. Net sales for the first quarter of 2014 grew to US$850m, up from US$814m in the corresponding quarter of 2013. USG's first quarter profit surged to US$45m from US$2m.
UK: Energy savings of 63% have been achieved following the installation of multiple Saint-Gobain systems in a world-first retrofit research project.
Saint-Gobain worked with the Energy House at Salford University, Greater Manchester, UK to prove that whole-house, fabric first retrofitting of homes can deliver significantly reduced energy costs, lower CO2 emissions and remove 50% of air leakage.
The Energy House at Salford University is a typical 1919 terraced house that has been reconstructed in a fully environmentally controllable chamber, in which climatic conditions can be maintained, varied, repeated and patterns monitored. The type of building used in the study represents 21% of UK housing stock and is classed as a hard-to-treat property due to its poor energy efficiency derived from solid wall construction.
The Energy House at Salford University included Saint-Gobain systems from British Gypsum, Glassolutions, Isover and Weber to bring high levels of thermal efficiency. The approach of the project was to measure the whole-house performance post-installation using off-the-shelf Saint-Gobain systems and standard installation techniques, making the results repeatable across the UK's hard-to-treat housing stock.