Gypsum industry news

Kazakhstan: Russia-based Volma has completed its acquisition of a gypsum plant in Inderborsky, Atyrau Region and a nearby quarry. No value for the transaction has been disclosed. The company noted that the stone extracted from the quarry has a gypsum content of 94%. The plant has started recruiting employees and will supply the local market with products under the Volma brand. Reports in the Russia-based media in August 2023 indicated that Volma was preparing to buy a plant in Kazakhstan with a production capacity of 120,000t/yr of building gypsum and other products.

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.

Canada/US: Saint-Gobain has signed a 15-year renewable electricity supply agreement (PPA) with TotalEnergies for the purchase of solar power for its 125 industrial sites in the US and Canada. This 100MW PPA, known as the Danish Fields Solar Project (Danish Fields), is expected to offset Saint-Gobain’s North American CO₂ emissions from electricity (scope 2 emissions) by 90,000t/yr. The project is expected to come online by the end of 2024.

Danish Fields is the third PPA signed in North America by Saint-Gobain. The first PPA, with the Blooming Grove Wind Farm in Illinois, was signed in 2020, and the second, with TotalEnergies’ Cottonwood Bayou Solar Project in Texas, was signed in 2022. All three projects have been supported by Edison Energy, a leading energy and sustainability advisory that consults with the largest commercial, industrial and institutional energy users.

Mark Rayfield, the chief executive officer of Saint-Gobain North America, said “With this agreement, Saint-Gobain North America will further reduce its CO₂ emissions, demonstrating how fast the manufacturing industry can transform when long term solutions are at hand. This renewable energy project is a new milestone on the way to meeting Saint-Gobain’s commitment to reduce scope 1 and 2 CO₂ emissions by 33% by 2030 - compared to 2017 - and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.”

The three projects combined are expected to represent a reduction of more than 70% in Saint-Gobain North America’s scope 2 emissions, compared to 2017 levels.

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.”

Ukraine: IF-GIPS has begun building its upcoming new 300,000t/yr plaster plant in Ukraine. IF-GIPS sells its gypsum products under the KRUMIX brand.

IF-GIPS says that it subsequently plans to build a new gypsum wallboard plant, also in Ukraine.

UK: British Gypsum’s Robertsbridge plant has celebrated the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gypsum at the site in East Sussex. To mark the event the company held a family day with a range of activities, according to the Sussex Express newspaper. Tanya Young, the plant manager, said "Our legacy is grounded in this discovery, and it's incredible to see how gypsum remains an essential component in modern construction, proving its enduring value over the years." She added “The majority of our employees are locals, and we're proud to have generations of families who have been a part of the British Gypsum family for decades."

One can tell that gypsum wallboard is a popular product because companies keep trying to devise alternatives to it. A recent one is Breathaboard. The company making it, Adaptavate, announced in August 2023 that it had generated around Euro2.3m in its latest investment round. It is building a pilot production line in Bristol in the UK and attempting to licence its Breathaboard product, amongst other plans. Its take on wallboard is being marketed as a sustainable substitute that is made from crop waste, that sequesters CO₂ and that then can be composted at the end of its life. It is also promoting the product’s breathability and moisture buffering capabilities, hence the name.

Another new contender hoping to steal some of the gypsum wallboard market is Xeriant’s Nexaboard product. This one uses plastic waste as its alternative to gypsum. Florida-based Xeriant said in July 2023 that it had started to buy equipment and raw materials, was running pilot production and was testing its first samples. It too is working on getting its product used in pilot construction projects.

Both of these examples, and others over the years, have taken a pop at wallboard’s sustainability credentials. Adaptavate is rather quieter about what happens to all of that sequestered CO₂ when its product is composted and Xeriant does not mention the environmental impact of making the plastic it uses in the first place. Yet, it is a valid question to ask how sustainable is gypsum wallboard? This column has covered issues with the supply of raw gypsum from either natural, synthetic or recycled sources previously, so we will stick to the general picture here.

The late-lamented consultant Bob Bruce pulled together data from various studies for the Global Gypsum Conference in 2019 to estimate the CO₂ emissions from wallboard production. He estimated that the global average of CO₂ production by wallboard was around 2.4kg/m², equating to 24Mt/yr of CO₂ for the global wallboard industry. For reference, it is estimated by the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo (CICERO) that the process emissions from clinker production alone released around 1.6Gt/yr of CO₂ in 2022. When compared by mass (as opposed to area) to other building materials, wallboard has a lower carbon intensity than many products such as glass, cement (made from clinker), plastics, steel and plywood. Timber, concrete and brick are all better than wallboard though. However, as Bruce pointed out, a lot more concrete is manufactured than wallboard. Bruce came up with a handful of suggestions for how wallboard production could reduce its CO₂ emissions such as the reduction of slurry water, local delivery, co-generation, increasing drying efficiency and so on.

The two big sustainability trends from the sector over the last year have been the drive to support higher recycling rates of gypsum and a move towards ‘greener’ sources of energy. This can be seen in the growing use of electrical energy from renewable sources such as the production of net zero CO₂ gypsum wallboard at Saint-Gobain’s Fredrikstad plant in Norway from April 2023. The group’s Montreal plant looks set to follow in 2024 following an upgrade, potentially making it the first net zero wallboard plant in North America. Chiyoda-Ute in Japan has also started using renewably-sourced electricity at its plants in Japan, but it is uncertain what other energy sources these sites are using. China-based BNBM also claimed in its half-year results that it had built four “nearly zero emission” gypsum board production lines in the reporting period.

Wallboard's market position in North America, Europe and elsewhere seems secure. However, it is in dynamic tension as it is both a potential replacement for more carbon intensive building materials and it could also be susceptible to new emerging products that can improve on its own emissions. The manufacturers of Breathaboard and Nexaboard are clearly hoping for the latter. Yet, as is often pointed out, giving more market share to wallboard from other common building materials could reduce CO₂ emissions from construction massively. The diversification of traditional heavy building materials companies such as Holcim into light building materials in recent years suggests that some businesses are seriously preparing for this possibility. No doubt, if global wallboard usage does start to rise significantly, the pressure will grow to make wallboard more sustainable and to devise even more alternative board products.

New Zealand: Winstone Wallboards has started despatching wallboard produced at its new Tauranga plant around New Zealand’s North Island. General manager David Thomas said that GIB wallboard products made in the new plant had achieved performance levels consistent with those of wallboard made in the company’s Auckland and Christchurch plants. Earlier in August 2023, Ross Taylor, the chief executive officer of Fletcher Building, Winstone Wallboards’ parent company, said that the Tauranga plant had commenced production. The site is scheduled to become fully operational by the end of October 2023.

New Zealand: Fletcher Building has managed to grow its earnings for its Building Products division in its 2023 financial year despite a weakened residential market in the second half of the year, poor weather and rising input costs. It noted that “substantial cost increases were absorbed on gypsum, paper, resin and freight, partially offset by lower utility costs from the drop in electricity prices.” It combated this through cost management and ‘pricing discipline.’ Revenue from the group’s Building Products division fell slightly to US$863m in the financial year to 30 June 2023 from US$873m in the same period in 2022. However, earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) rose by 4% year-on-year to US$120m from US$115m.

Ross Taylor, the chief executive officer of Fletcher Building, said “Our US$240m investment in Winstone Wallboards GIB plasterboard manufacturing and distribution facility in Tauranga has now commenced production and will be fully operational by the end of October 2023. The new plant’s state-of-the-art technology delivers more production capacity allowing for product innovation and future growth.”

Overall the group’s revenue dropped slightly to US$5.07bn from US$5.08bn and EBIT dropped by 29% to US$298m from US$420m. The large drop in earnings was mainly attributed to additional costs allocated to the New Zealand International Convention Centre and Hobson Street Hotel project. Adjusted for significant items the group’s EBIT rose by 6% to US$477m from US$452m.

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.”