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Gypsum industry news
Knauf Ibérica to build biomass unit at Guixers wallboard plant
07 December 2023Spain: Knauf Ibérica is planning to build a 7.5MW biomass unit at its Guixers gypsum wallboard plant in Lleida. The unit will be operational by December 2024 and create around 200 jobs, according to La Vanguardia newspaper. The company intends to source wood biomass locally. Once operational it is expected to reduce the plant’s CO2 emissions by 35%. The Guixers plant also installed photovoltaic solar panels earlier in 2023.
Alberto De Luca, chief executive officer of Knauf Ibérica, said “The launch of this project is a significant step towards reducing our carbon footprint and achieving zero emissions by 2045."
Pladur to start using hydrogen at plants from second half of 2024
07 December 2023Spain: Pladur plans to start using green hydrogen at its Valdemoro gypsum wallboard plant from the second half of 2024. The subsidiary of Etex will then roll out the use of hydrogen at its other plants in the country, according to Forbes. It is also considering using biomethane and biogas generated from organic waste in its production processes.
Time for new gypsum wallboard plants in the US
26 October 2023Georgia-Pacific officially opened its new gypsum wallboard plant at Sweetwater in Texas earlier this month. The US$325m project is situated next to the company’s existing plant at the site, Sweetwater West, on the other side of a road. Canada-based Gyptech said in 2021 that it was supplying the equipment for the new high-speed line at the site.
When Georgia-Pacific first announced the new project in 2020, it mentioned that it would be able to keep its logistics costs low, use raw gypsum reserves and the existing workforce. Despite this, the plant has still created over 100 new jobs. The company also said that it anticipated closing its 60Mm2/yr Quanah plant, also in Texas, depending upon market conditions. This came to pass in March 2023. Altogether, both plants at Sweetwater will have a production capacity of around 93Mm2/yr. This implies that the new plant has a production capacity of around 60Mm2/yr, given that the existing plant’s capacity is 30Mm2/yr. Funnily enough this is the same as the Quanah plant.
The new plant at Sweetwater may be a sign that the US wallboard market is picking up again. Georgia-Pacific has invested some serious money and it is targeting Texas, a leading area for construction nationally. However, it does come with a few caveats. Firstly, the new plant at Sweetwater is replacing existing capacity at Quanah. Secondly, it is using some of the advantages of the existing plant such as its trucks and its proximity to its customers. This suggests that the company may be wary of building a new plant in a greenfield location with all the potential risks that might involve.
US wallboard sales have regularly peaked and troughed over the decades, like many other commodity markets, as demand and production capacity race each other. Sales of wallboard peaked around the year 2000 and then again in the mid 2000s before tailing off following the 2007 recession. They have been recovering ever since and started to get close to the levels seen in the first half of the 2000s in 2022 when the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported wallboard sales of 2.6Bnm2.
Generally, the last tranche of new wallboard plants in the US were built or approved in the late 2000s before the financial downturn. These new sites included CertainTeed’s Roxboro plant in North Carolina and the Moundsville plant in West Virginia, Gold Bond Building Products’ Mount Holly plant in North Carolina and American Gypsum’s Georgetown plant in South Carolina. From this point though various plants were either closed or mothballed. Some of the latter have been restarted as the market slowly recovered. New plant projects in the 2010s tended to be upgrades or replacements. One example of this was USG’s plan to rebuild a production line at its Jacksonville plant in Florida, which was announced in late 2017 before Knauf took over the company in 2018. Another was National Gypsum’s scheme to reopen its Wilmington plant in North Carolina in 2019. At the same time in the 2010s there were a number of mergers and acquisitions including Lafarge’s sale of its gypsum business in North America in 2013, Knauf’s takeover of USG in 2019 and Saint-Gobain’s acquisition of Continental Building Products in 2020.
When Georgia-Pacific started building the new plant at Sweetwater in 2020 this marked the start of a new phase of US wallboard plant projects. American Gypsum announced plans for an upgrade to its Albuquerque gypsum wallboard plant in 2021, Gold Bond Building Products started building its long-delayed Eloy plant in Arizona in 2022 and it said it was spending US$90m on an upgrade to its Mount Holly gypsum wallboard plant in North Carolina in 2023, and CertainTeed revealed it wanted to build a second production line at its Palatka gypsum wallboard plant in Florida also in 2023.
Congratulations are due to Georgia-Pacific for the achievement at Sweetwater. Optimism for the US market in general may also be in order given the slow but steady stream of projects that have been announced and completed since 2020. The next step, when a company builds a new wallboard plant at a greenfield site in the US, looks set to happen when Gold Bond Building Products completes its Eloy plant.
Peru: Nicolás Restrepo, the Andean Region manager for Etex, says that an ongoing upgrade to the Huachipa gypsum wallboard plant is set to be finished by 2025. In an interview with the Gestión newspaper he revealed that the US$31.5m project should be 60% complete by the end of 2023. Once commissioned the upgrade will double the production capacity of the unit.
Japan: Chiyoda Ute intends to launch a gypsum board product, Chiyoda Hokkaido Board, which uses 50% recycled gypsum, from December 2023. The product will be manufactured at its Muroran plant in Hokkaido. Subsidiary Tokuyama Chiyoda Gypsum opened a gypsum recycling plant in Muroran in September 2023. Chiyoda Ute owns a 49% share in Tokuyama Chiyoda Gypsum and Tokuyama Corporation owns the remainder.
US: Georgia-Pacific has officially opened its new gypsum wallboard plant at Sweetwater in Texas. The project had a budget of US$325m and it is the first new wallboard plant that Georgia-Pacific has built since 2004.
David Neal, president of Georgia-Pacific Gypsum said “The two operations combined will supply customers and distribution partners with more than 92Mm2 of gypsum products each year and create more than 100 new jobs. This investment strengthens Georgia-Pacific's capacity to meet growing customer needs in Texas' residential, commercial, and industrial construction markets.”
The new plant is adjacent to Georgia-Pacific’s first gypsum wallboard facility in Sweetwater, purchased by the company in 1996. The existing facility has been operating in Nolan County since the 1950s. Over the last year, Georgia-Pacific has invested approximately US$16m in technical and safety upgrades at the plant, including an Energy Optimization System (EOS), auto-guided vehicles (AGVs), an automated robotic riser system, auto-splicing equipment, and upgraded packaging equipment. It has also upgraded the employee facilities.
Volma buys gypsum plant and quarry in Kazakhstan
29 September 2023Kazakhstan: 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.
Knauf discusses gypsum plant project with president of Kyrgyzstan
29 September 2023Kyrgyzstan: 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.
IF-GIPS commences construction of 300,000t/yr plaster plant
11 September 2023Ukraine: 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.
British Gypsum’s Robertsbridge plant celebrates 150th anniversary
07 September 2023UK: 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."