Gypsum industry news

Kyrgyzstan: Representatives of Germany-based Knauf have discussed plans to build a gypsum plant in the country. Knauf General Partner Uwe Knotzer said that the company is preparing to build a plant in the northern Chüy Region, according to the Central Asian News Service. However, it is also considering constructing a plant in the southern Osh Region. As part of the meeting a memorandum of understanding and cooperation was signed between the National Investment Agency under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic and Knauf.

Germany: Rigips held the first meeting for its specialist contractor advisory board on 13 – 14 September 2023 at the Brieselang gypsum wallboard plant in Brandenburg. The managing directors of 10 wallboard construction companies met to discuss the market and future challenges. The program for the two-day meeting included a tour of the plant and a workshop moderated by the Rigips product management and the research and development departments.

Danijel Lučić, the director of sales at Saint-Gobain Isover G+H and Saint-Gobain Rigips said “With the expertise of the 'Rigips Experts', we want to be even closer to the market, from product management through research and development to sales.” He added, “The members of the advisory board are all professionals in modern wallboard construction. We want to include these experts in our considerations when developing products and systems and also when developing messages for and in the market. Your feedback is enormously valuable for us in order to be able to prepare and make important decisions safely.”

Germany: Knauf Gips has started an upgrade at its Iphofen gypsum wallboard plant to switch its use of synthetic gypsum to natural gypsum. The project is taking place to prepare the unit for the local phase out of coal-fired power plants by 2038 at the latest. Early work at the site has involved using a 700t crane to lift material over the Würzburg-Nuremberg railway line, during planned renovation to the transport link in late July 2023. The company described the cost of the upgrade as a “mid-double-digit million sum.”

Eurogypsum added its views on the European Union’s (EU) proposed Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) last month. It wants gypsum to be added to the bill’s list of critical and strategic raw materials. It is not surprising that the European federation of national associations of producers of gypsum products might want to do this. However, when compared to rare earth minerals of the sort required to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EV), gypsum doesn’t seem all that, well, rare.

What may be rare though is people’s patience with new gypsum mines. The association’s argument is that gypsum is indeed abundant in the EU but that accessing it is increasingly becoming difficult. The EU’s sustainability agenda has made the energy efficiency of buildings as important as reducing CO₂ emissions from the transportation sector. Gypsum and other materials used to make lightweight building materials are a way of renovating existing buildings and improving energy efficiency. Therefore it suggests that the act should either recognise gypsum as strategic or introduce a new ‘essential’ category. This would then make the process of extracting gypsum more easy.

This approach ties back to initiatives such as one by the Federal Commission on Geosciences (BLA-GEO) in Germany, which previously started to compile an inventory of the nation’s gypsum deposits with the intention of putting this in front of policy makers. Nor is the gypsum sector alone in targeting the potentially lucrative retrofit market. In May 2023 Daikin, Danfoss, Knauf Insulation, Rockwool, Saint-Gobain, Signify and Velux signed an agreement to promote building energy efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Radek Bedrna, Knauf Insulation’s managing director for Eastern Europe and Middle East, noted that two thirds of the 43.6m homes in single- and multi-family houses in the CEE region were reportedly built before 1989 and are energy inefficient. The European Commission places transport-related greenhouse gas emissions at about 25% of the region’s total. Renovating buildings fully, by contrast, could save up to 5% of the EU’s emissions. Targeting transport emissions may be a higher priority for the EU but the savings from retrofitting are not trivial either.

Then - on cue in mid-June 2023 - there was an example of the difficulties gypsum product producers can face with building new quarries or enlarging old ones when expansion plans for a gypsum quarry supporting Placoplatre’s wallboard plant in Chambéry in France were scaled back from local opposition. The subsidiary of Saint-Gobain met similar issues in late 2022 when a public enquiry started examining its plans to build a new quarry at Fort Vaujours, Seine-Saint-Denis. This site is intended to serve the Vaujours gypsum wallboard plant as a replacement for its Bernouille quarry after the latter closes in 2026. This one has a happier ending, for the gypsum sector at least, since the project received an environmental permit in late May 2023. One of the key issues that came up in the enquiry was a disagreement over the means of extraction. A local environmental group favoured underground mining but an open-cast approach was preferred by the producer as it would yield much more gypsum. The latter was eventually approved.

What this suggests is that making gypsum an ‘essential’ raw material in Europe requires engagement with the general public as much as legislators. Some people may not like having a wind farm built near where they live but the chances are that there will be less opposition than building a new coal mine. Digging up new gypsum deposits should be presented as more like the former than the latter. Whizzing around in a new EV is generally seen as being more fun than bragging about how great the lamba factor is for one’s house. However, this may change if energy prices keep ticking upwards. Gypsum may not be rare but Eurogypsum and others can make a strong case for it being essential.

Kazakhstan: Germany-based Knauf has signed a deal with the government of the Zhambyl region to build a gypsum wallboard and dry building mixtures plant. The project has a cost of around Euro30m, according to InterFax. Completion is scheduled by 2026. Local subsidiary Knauf Gips Taraz is now developing design and estimate documentation for the construction of necessary infrastructure. Products from the proposed plant will be sold in the domestic market. The project is one of nine agreements between organisations from Germany and Kazakhstan announced during an official visit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

UK: Langley Holdings, owner of Claudius Peters, recorded consolidated sales of Euro1.17bn during 2022, up by 40% year-on-year from Euro815m in 2021. The group ended the year with an order backlog worth Euro900m. Its Other Industrials division, which includes Germany-based Claudius Peters, recorded sales of Euro277m, up by 11% from Euro250m. Langley Holdings said that, due to the length of its lead times, Claudius Peters’ profitability was especially impacted by costs rises in its delivery on existing contracts in 2022.

Chair Anthony Langley said “Hopefully management will make progress with tangible improvements to the plant machinery business: restructuring is not the preferred option, but, either way, I do expect a better result this year.”

Germany: The German Professional Association of Geoscientists (BGD), the German Gypsum Association (GIPS) and Knauf Gips have held a christening ceremony for gypsum’s status as ‘rock of the year’ at Iphofen. At the event a freshly mined gypsum stone was ceremoniously unveiled. Speeches were also given by Manuel Lapp from the Saxony State Office for the Environment, Agriculture and Geology, Holger Ortleb of GIPS, Andreas von Heßberg from the University of Bayreuth and Marco Pabstmann from Knauf. Music was provided by the Knauf miners’ band. Over 80 guests were in attendance. Since 2007 the BGD has chosen a different rock each year to promote to the general public.

Earlier this month the German Gypsum Association (GIPS) gave its approval for an inventory of natural gypsum deposits in Germany that was presented at the Conference of Economics Ministers that took place in early July 2022. The Federal Commission on Geosciences (BLA-GEO) had previously been given the job of taking an inventory of deposits and this was then put in front of the policy makers. The association’s stance was all about securing future supplies. In its view there will be no large-scale alternatives to natural gypsum supplies in the foreseeable future due to low recycling rates and falling production of flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) gypsum as coal power plants are shut down. So a list of where natural gypsum might be found is the start of conversations about which ones might be mined. Readers who are interested can download the inventory of German gypsum deposits here.

Security of supply of raw materials has been in the air since the end of the coronavirus lockdowns started to cause supply chain disruption around the world and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further exacerbated this and rocked energy markets. Part of the reaction to this new reality could be seen in a conference that the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) and the German Resource Research Institute (GERRI) ran, also in early July 2022. The state of German gypsum supplies was presented at this event too. The BGR-GERRI conference came up with a ten-point plan to strengthen the supply of raw material. Some of these recommendations were to grow domestic raw material extraction, expand recycling and the circular economy and keep supply chains closer internationally, ideally within Germany and Europe.

A focus on gypsum supplies isn’t restricted to Germany though. The issue arose in late July 2022 during an earnings call for US-based Eagle Materials’ first quarter results. These kinds of questions from analysts about supply of raw materials are common for a public company but it reinforces the general declining trend around the world of synthetic gypsum supplies. Craig Kessler, the chief financial officer of Eagle Materials, mentioned that a scarcity of synthetic gypsum might be creating cost pressures for other gypsum wallboard producers. Although he was quick to describe his company as a “natural gas or natural gypsum oriented business.” The wider picture in the US is that the ratio of natural to synthetic gypsum production has grown over the last decade. United States Geological Survey (USGS) data shows that it was 37% / 49% in 2011 compared to 53% / 32% in 2021, with the remainder imported in each year.

One more point to make here is that many of the new gypsum wallboard plant projects announced in the over the last few months have involved recycling in one form or another. For example, Siniat’s forthcoming wallboard plant in Bristol in the UK aims to achieve 30% post-consumer gypsum recycling. CertainTeed’s current upgrade plans for its Palatka plant in Florida are also recycling-based. Similarly, the subsidiary of Saint-Gobain also completed an upgrade in June 2022 to allow more recycling at its Nashville plant in Arkansas.

Finally, some of the thinking in Germany and elsewhere has been influenced by the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine. However, one potential consequence of prolonged disruption to European energy markets could be a delay to the decline of coal power plants as plant lifespans are elongated or even new ones built. This in turn could mean more synthetic gypsum supplies in Europe in the short to medium term. How all of this plays out in the placement of new gypsum wallboard plants in Europe over the next few years will be interesting to observe.

Germany: The German Gypsum Association (GIPS) has welcomed the publication of a government report that took an inventory of natural gypsum deposits. It supports the work as it allows its members to make qualified decisions about future planning. The Federal Commission on Geosciences (BLA-GEO) has created a register of gypsum supplies in the country. The association added that it believes there will be no large-scale alternatives to natural gypsum supplies in the foreseeable future. This is due to low volumes of gypsum recycling and falling production of flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) Gypsum as coal power plants are shut down.

Uzbekistan: Germany-based Knauf has launched a new 17Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant at Fergana. The unit can also produce 40,000t/yr of dry building mixes. The project had an investment of just under Euro19m. It is the company’s third production plant in the country.