Gypsum industry news

France: A public enquiry into Saint-Gobain subsidiary Placoplatre's plans to establish a gypsum quarry at Fort Vaujours, Seine-Saint-Denis, opened earlier in November 2022. The producer plans to use the new site to serve its Vaujours gypsum wallboard plant as a replacement for its Bernouille quarry after the latter closes in 2026. The 65Mm²/yr facility consumes 900,000t/yr of natural gypsum.

Eco group Environnement 93 has protested the anticipated enviromental impacts of opening a quarry of sufficient size to reach the gypsum deposit 25m below ground. Placoplatre's proposal consists of a three-stage approach in which it demolishes buildings, clears any hazardous residues from the site's military and nuclear power testing history and only then commences extraction. The company plans to restore part of the site after mining is completed. The enquiry will run until 23 December 2022.

France: Saint-Gobain’s sales grew by 14.5% on a like-for-like basis to Euro38.4bn in the first nine months of 2022 compared to Euro32.9bn in the same period in 2021. Strong sales growth was reported in all business lines although sales were driven in particular by the group’s High Performance Solutions business and its Asia-Pacific and North America regions.

The group noted that raw materials, freight and energy costs were growing, especially in Europe. It said that it had hedged around 80% of its natural gas and electricity purchasing needs for 2022 and around 60% for 2023. It has also been preparing continuity plans for its gas-consuming plants in Europe to ensure the flexibility of production to operate with less or alternative energy. The group said that its gypsum wallboard and construction chemicals production lines were “extremely flexible.”

By region the group said it had started the world’s first zero-carbon wallboard production at its Balsta plant in Sweden powered by biogas and ‘green’ electricity. In France it produced and marketed its Placo Infini 13 product, which is said is the first wallboard made from over 50% recycled gypsum.

France: Saint-Gobain and the solar manufacturer Megasol, the European leader in Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV), have announced a strategic partnership. As part of this partnership, Saint- Gobain has acquired a minority stake in Megasol's business unit that develops and manufactures building-integrated photovoltaics in Deitingen, Switzerland. The partnership enables Saint-Gobain to extend its sustainable solutions offer for façades and to become the leading provider for BIPV façade solutions in Europe, one of the fastest growing segments of façade construction. At the same time, it gives Megasol access to Saint-Gobain’s customer base.

BIPV's solutions contribute to sustainable construction and decarbonisation by efficiently producing energy from the surfaces of buildings. Building owners cannot only comply with today’s and future energy regulations and increase their own energy efficiency, but they can also generate additional revenue by feeding the electricity into the grid.

This investment is in line with Saint-Gobain's 'Grow & Impact' plan to further strengthen its leadership position in light and sustainable construction.

France: Alphaplatre's gypsum wallboard and plaster line engineering subsidiary RBL-REI has acquired calcination equipment supplier Gupsos.

RBL-REI general manager Lionel Landreau and Gupsos founder Michel Dairay said "The integration of Gupsos now allows RBL-REI to offer new technologies for its production lines, thanks in particular to the indirect cooking process using a Beau type kiln."

France: SaintGobain says that the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has approved its CO₂ reduction targets. The group plans to achieve net zero CO₂ emissions, both direct and indirect, along its entire value chain by 2050. This will entail a reduction in CO₂ emissions of at least 90% in the three scopes by 2050, with additional sequestration projects planned for residual emissions.

Saint-Gobain's commitments to reduce, in absolute terms, by 2030 from 2017 its direct and indirect CO₂ emissions (scopes 1 and 2) by 33% and its scope 3 emissions, mainly linked to purchasing and transport, by 16% by 2030 was already validated in 2020 by the SBTi. The group says it will continue to accelerate its roadmap, notably through improvements in energy efficiency, product weight reduction, increased recycled content and the use of green energies, in order to align its targets with the most demanding trajectory, which limits the rise in temperatures to 1.5°C.

France: Saint-Gobain has launched a Euro1.5bn bond issue. The issue consists of three Euro500m tranches, with maturities of three, six and 10 years. It is linked to two indicators of Saint-Gobain sustainability targets, namely its progress towards a 33% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 CO₂ emissions and an 80% reduction in production waste between 2017 and 2030. The company said that the transaction will enable it to extend the average maturity of its debt with mid to long-term funding.

CFO Sreedhar Natarajan said “Sustainable growth is at the heart of Saint-Gobain’s business model. The issuance of a sustainability-linked bond demonstrates the strength of Saint-Gobain’s commitments set out in its environmental and social governance roadmap. The group aims in particular to tackle the big energy and environmental challenges faced by the world with its contribution to reduce CO₂ emissions in its operations, and also decarbonise construction and industrial activities through its sustainable solutions”

France: Saint-Gobain’s sales were Euro25.5bn in the first half of 2022, up by 15% year-on-year from the same period in 2021. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 13% to Euro3.68bn. Sales rose by 15% in Northern Europe, by 14% in Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, by 17% in the Americas and by 30% in Asia-Pacific. The producer ends the period with a net debt of Euro8.3bn, up by 9.2% from Euro7.6bn.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Benoit Bazin said, “Over the coming quarters, we are ready to adapt as needed to the consequences of rising interest rates and inflation along with the geopolitical and energy situation in Europe. Each country CEO has designed action plans, focusing especially on margins and cash flow. In this more uncertain environment, our target is to continue to outperform our markets and our deep transformation will enable us to demonstrate greater resilience. Over the past three years, our teams have successfully risen to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, supply chain disruptions and a strong inflationary environment. With portfolio rotation of almost Euro10bn in sales since the end of 2018, and with a local organisation keenly aware of immediate realities on the ground, Saint-Gobain has significantly increased its value creation. Against this backdrop, I am confident in the group’s 2022 outlook, which targets a further increase in operating income compared to 2021 at constant exchange rates.”

France: Saint-Gobain says that it is confident it can offset inflation in raw material and energy costs in 2022 through price rises and hedging its energy costs. In an update on its first quarter results the group said that it expects its energy and raw material costs to increase by around Euro2.5bn in 2022 as a whole compared to 2021. Much of this inflation is related to the European market where the company says it has hedged around 80% of its natural gas and electricity purchases for 2022. It noted that it increased its prices and sales volumes by 14.5% and 1.9% year-on-year respectively in the first quarter of 2022.

The company added it had prepared contingency plans in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic should there be any disruptions to natural gas supplies from Russia. These include the classification of priority industries, using alternative energy sources already prepared at certain sites, and increasing the flexibility of its production capacities.

Saint-Gobain’s sales rose by 16% year-on-year to Euro10.4bn in the first quarter of 2022 from Euro12bn in the same period in 2021. The group said growth was driven by building renovation in Europe and by construction in the Americas and in Asia.

France: Placo and Serfim Recyclage have revealed that they started operating a new 140t/day plaster recycling plant at Quincy-Voisins near Paris in October 2021. The companies say that the Pari Plâtre site is the first in the Paris region to be solely used for recycling plaster waste from construction sites.

Daily deliveries via the Placo Recycling network bring plaster waste from within a 250km radius to the site. The waste is then sorted by hand along an 80m production line to remove wood, ceramic, cardboard and polystyrene fractions. These materials are recycled separately. The plaster is crushed and screened with a 98% recovery rate. The plant stores reclaimed gypsum in two 80m³ silos. The gypsum is then transported to Placo’s gypsum wallboard plant at Vaujours for use as a secondary raw material.

Placo says it is the leading recycler of gypsum in France. Following the opening of Pari Plâtre the company has increased its plaster recycling target in 2030 target to 200,000t/yr. This will allow the subsidiary of Saint-Gobain to use up to 30% of recycled materials in the production of its wallboard products.

France: Saint-Gobain’s sales grew by 15.8% year-on-year to Euro44.2bn in 2021 from Euro38.1bn in 2020. Its earnings before taxation, interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBTIDA) rose by 41% to Euro6.20bn from Euro4.42bn. Sales and earnings increased by 4% and 27% compared to 2019 levels before the coronavirus pandemic started. Sales revenue and operation income was reported up in all geographical regions. In North America the group noted that the integration of Continental Building Products had boosted its position in the US gypsum wallboard market and helped it to tap new sales channels.

“The records achieved in 2021 confirm that the group has entered a new post-transformation trajectory in terms of performance: market-beating sales growth, record earnings and margins, a high level of free cash flow generation that has more than doubled compared to previous years, and strong value creation for our shareholders thanks to strict capital allocation and the determined execution of our portfolio optimisation,” said Benoit Bazin, the chief executive officer of Saint-Gobain.

The group completed or signed 37 acquisitions in 2021, including Chryso and GCP Applied Technologies (GCP), marking its rapid expansion into the construction chemicals market. In November 2021 On November 15, 2021, Saint-Gobain said that it had acquired a gypsum plant in Nairobi, Kenya. It will be the company’s first production site in Kenya, where it will also invest in a construction chemicals production line.