Gypsum industry news

South Korea: KCC has completed the third gypsum wallboard line at its Seosan plant in South Chungcheong. Following the upgrade, the plant has increased its production capacity by 40% to 24.2Mm2, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper. Commercial production on the new line is expected to start in July 2017. KCC also says that it has become the largest wallboard producer in the country.

Russia: Knauf Petroboard and the local government of the Leningrad region have signed a Euro54m deal to upgrade a gypsum wallboard liner plant in Kommunar. Two thirds of the funds will be used to upgrade equipment at the site with the remainder targeted at treatment works, according to the Stroygaz newspaper. Start-up for the equipment is scheduled for the end of 2018. The agreement has been announced as part of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum framework.

India: USG Boral has announced that it will set up a 30Mm²/yr wallboard plant near Chennai at a cost of US$46m. The plant will support USG Boral's commitment in southern India as the company looks for ways to better serve its customers in India.

Plans are underway to break ground in the third quarter of 2017. The plant is expected to be fully operational within 24 months. More than 100 people are expected to be employed once the plant is operating at full capacity.

The new facility will add to USG Boral's India presence, where it currently operates two other facilities, a 9Mm²/yr wallboard and metal plant in Khushkhera, near New Delhi, and a joint compound and putty plant, in the Chennai area.

Philippines: Knauf Gypsum Philippines has started building a gypsum wallboard plant in the industrial park at the Calaca Seaport in Batangas. The company is a joint venture between the German companies Knauf Gips and Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG), an investment and development group, according to the Philippines News Agency. Murray Read, Knauf's chief executive officer (CEO) for Asia and the Pacific, said that the plant is aimed to meet demand for plasterboard and other gypsum-based building products within the country's growing construction industry.

Chile: Knauf has acquired Novochile for an undisclosed amount. The purchase includes a 10Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant in La Serana and gypsum mineral reserves. The plant supplies central and northern Chile and it will compliment Knauf's plant in Argentina. It will be the seventh that it operates in Latin America.

Peru: Production at Eternit's gypsum wallboard plant in Lima has been disrupted by extreme weather related to the El Niño cycle. Production of the Gyplac drywall brand was affected when the district the factory is in flooded in late March 2017, according to the El Comercio, newspaper. The flooding also hit the company's logistic network.

Ethiopia: Habesha Cement plans to produce gypsum wallboard. In an interview with the Capitol Ethiopia newspaper Mesfin Abi, the chief executive of the company, announced plans to target the imported market locally and export wallboard also. Habesha Cement operates a 1.4Mt/yr cement plant near to Addis Ababa that is expected to start selling products locally in the coming weeks.

Australia: Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment Curtis Pitt toured the construction site of Knauf Australia's US$53m wallboard manufacturing facility near Bundaberg on Wednesday 15 March 2017. Construction of the plant began in early 2016.

"Knauf Australia is well on the way to completing its plasterboard manufacturing factory at the Port of Bundaberg and is expected to commission the plant by mid-July and begin production in August," said Pitt. "Knauf considered a number of locations for its new plant to service the northern Australian markets, including some offshore options. Attracting a global operation like Knauf to Bundaberg offers many benefits for the local community, including the creation of 60 jobs in the region, and around 70 when full production is reached in two years."

Ukraine: Saint-Gobain plans to build a gypsum wallboard plant in the Tlumach district of the Ivano-Frankivsk region. The Euro65m project includes the construction of two building materials units in the area, according to Interfax. A construction materials plant is scheduled for completion at the end of 2017 followed by a wallboard plant by early 2018. Both plants will be located near to the Khotymyr gypsum deposit. The new units are expected to create around 300 jobs.

Argentina: Canada's Centurion Minerals has achieved its design capacity level of 2000t/day in January 2017 at the Ana Sofia Property agricultural gypsum fertiliser pilot plant located in Santiago Del Estero. The plant and operating team have been able to extract, crush and bag approximately 1000t of material since the unti started operation. Some of this material has been sold and delivered to Argentine fertiliser distributors. Centurion's local joint venture partner is currently negotiating supply contracts with distributors in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Gypsum is quarried at the site from near-surface, flat-lying beds within a sedimentary formation. The gypsum rock is fed into a hopper leading to primary and secondary crushers, then screened and sorted into two agricultural gypsum fertiliser products. The plant produces both a pellet-sized granular product and a powdered product, each comprised of a minimum 85% gypsum content, that are packaged into 1t big bags.