Gypsum industry news

Uzbekistan: Knauf has started a new US$52.5m investment project at two of its plants in Bukhara. The move follows the signing of a new agreement in 2014 by Knauf and Uzstroymateriali JSC to boost economic cooperation between Uzbekistan and Germany.

Knauf has already invested US$51m in Uzbekistan. It has two plants in Bukhara: JV JSC Bukharagips, which produces dry building mixes and Knauf Gips Bukhara, which produces gypsum wallboard. The 60,000t/yr capacity Bukharagips plant started operations in August 2009, while the 20Mm³/yr capacity Knauf Gips Bukhara plant was built in 2011.

US: Wallboard recycler USA Gypsum has opened its US$3m wallboard recycling plant and corporate headquarters in the West Cocalico Township, Pennsylvania. The company said that the new buildings and equipment will produce better quality products more efficiently and will help USA Gypsum to divert even more wallboard waste from landfills.

The recycling plant also includes renovated buildings for packaging, storage and offices. In the past 10 years, USA Gypsum has diverted more than 225,000t of wallboard from landfills, converting it to beneficial use by farmers in the form of gypsum fertiliser, soil conditioners and amendments and gypsum animal bedding. In spite of this growth, USA Gypsum has estimated that less than 10% of wallboard scraps generated in Pennsylvania are recycled. USA Gypsum ships its gypsum products across the US and Canada.

Oman: USG Zawawi Drywall SFZ 's US$37m state-of-the-art gypsum plant in Oman's Salalah Free Zone (SFZ) was inaugurated on 6 May 2015 marking the formal start of commercial production of a range of Sheetrock brand gypsum wallboard products earmarked primarily for export across the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. USG Zawawi Drywall SFZ is a 50:50 partnership between USG Corporation, Boral and Zawawi Minerals.

"We are pleased to see the opening of this successful US-Omani venture. Building relations between the US and Oman is a top priority of the US Embassy and this work is a shining example of the strategic coordination that benefits both our countries," said Ann Mason, economic-commercial officer from the US Embassy. "We applaud USG Boral and Zawawi Minerals for taking full advantage of the potential of Salalah Port and Free Zone and the US Oman Free Trade Agreement."

Commissioning of the Salalah plant, which has 8Mm²/yr of gypsum wallboard production capacity, began in March 2015. It was designed to enable future expansion to double wallboard production capacity or add new products like construction plaster. The plant will produce a wide range of Sheetrock gypsum boards, including products resistant to water, fire, sound, impact and mould. According to Curt Loring, general manager of USG Zawawi Drywall SFZ, it will produce products with special certifications not currently manufactured or available in the GCC. These products are specially engineered for custom wall systems in demand by architects for commercial construction.

The products will be marketed across the Gulf and Indian Subcontinent. Uptake is expected to be robust around the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), where a commercial construction boom is already underway. The raw gypsum is sourced entirely from a major gypsum quarry located in the Thamrait area of Dhofar Governorate. The quarry is operated by Zawawi Gypsum and is jointly-owned by USG-Boral and Zawawi Minerals.

"USG Zawawi Drywall's investment is in keeping with the Omani government's economic policies advocating the sustainable commercialisation of natural resources to diversify the economy, create employment for Omanis and facilitate inflows of investment and know-how. The Salalah facility operates to the same stringent safety and environmental standards applied by USG at its facilities in the US," said Alawi Al Zawawi, chairman of USG Zawawi Drywall SFZ.

Awadh Al Shanfari, CEO of Salalah Free Zone explained that the project is a re-enforcement of the Free Zone's commitment to maximise the Sultanate's mineral wealth through national and foreign partnership. "In the past, we have been focusing on projects that can create new industries linked to the available raw materials in the Sultanate. As a result of our endeavours, we will be announcing more investments during 2015," said Al Shanfari.

Vietnam: Vina Kraft Paper Co Ltd (VKPC), a joint venture between Thailand's Siam Kraft Industry Co Ltd (part of Siam Cement Group – SCG) and Japan's Rengo Co Ltd, will spend an additional US$126m expanding its packaging paper plant in Binh Duong. VKPC will invest the money to double the existing paper capacity to 847,000t/yr. The plant was commissioned with an initial investment of US$171m in 2010 and is now the biggest packaging paper plant in Vietnam. The new production line is set for operation in the second quarter of 2017.

Russia: Volma corporation is setting up a plant for the production of construction materials and gypsum-based products in the Republic of Adygea. The project has an investment of US$19.7m. It will have a production capacity of 0.24Mt/yr of dry mortars, 0.3Mt/yr of gypsum, 0.54Mm² of gypsum partition blocks. Phase two of the project will build a gypsum plasterboard line.

Peru: Etex's Eternit aims to double Peru's demand for wallboard construction systems, having invested some US$35m in its new, modern plant on the Huarochiri industrial estate in Lima, which was inaugurated recently.

The new plant will produce 12.2Mm²/yr of wallboard. National demand for wallboard in Peru is 10Mm²/yr, although this segment is growing at an estimated annual rate of 20%/yr. Eternit is already looking at a first expansion in 2020. The company will now focus on the residential sector, where there is huge potential for growth. Consumption of wallboard systems per capita ranges between 6m² and 8m² in developed countries, compared to 2.8m² in Chile, 0.6m² in Colombia and <0.3m² in Peru. Eternit aims to double this figure by 2018 or 2019. Currently, excess wallboard production from Peru is exported to Ecuador and northern Chile, where there is higher wallboard demand.

Vietnam: Gypsum and Cement JSC (TXM) has announced that it will target US$314,772 of pre-tax profit on US$29.2m revenues and 4% dividend in 2015. It reported US$384,207 of pre-tax profit on US$28.9m revenues and 3% dividend in 2014. In 2015, TXM plans to invest in the DAP Dinh Vu plant, which manufactures artificial gypsum, and is looking for partners for a project exploiting gypsum in Laos.

US: For the second consecutive day on 17 February 2015, fire-fighters responded to Georgia-Pacific Gypsum's plant in Newington, North Hampshire, for a partial roof collapse at a large storage area used to house gypsum for making wallboard, said assistant fire chief Jeffrey LeDuc. Fire-fighters were called to the plant just before 7am, when a structural engineer reported that the roof had collapsed under the heavy weight of deep snow, LeDuc said. Fortunately, the building had been evacuated on 16 February 2015 when a worker heard some kind of sound from the roof. LeDuc said that after the initial evacuation, utilities had been shut off to avoid further possible damage to the building.

Australia: Knauf Plasterboard is expected to announce that it will begin the construction phase of a new plant at the Bundaberg Port in south-east Queensland. Knauf Plasterboard currently manufactures and distributes plasterboard and accessories out of its Melbourne and Sydney plants.

In 2014, the company bought land from Gladstone Ports Corporation at the Bundaberg Port and is expected to start building a new plant in March 2015. Company spokesman Brian Tisher said that the new plant would create 200 jobs in the construction phase and 55 new positions when the project was complete in 2016. Tisher said that most of the products made would be sold in Queensland, but some would be exported. He added that building the facility in Bundaberg was an obvious choice, as a 26km gas pipeline was recently installed. The plant should be operational by September 2016.

Vietnam: DAP Joint Stock Company has found a solution to deal with gypsum created during production processes. The public has criticised the company for many years because of the 'acid leaking from its gypsum dumping ground.' However, the problem will be solved as DAP has found a way to recycle gypsum, turning it into artificial plaster to be used as a cement additive.

Since 2009 DAP has produced some 2Mt of gypsum, which is being kept at its temporary dumping ground. The ground is surrounded by clay and stone embankments with high-density polyethylene (HDPE) stratum to ensure that the water does not leak. There is a reservoir to collect acid from the waste and pump it back to the plant for use. When the pH content falls below the allowed level, the gypsum will be relocated to a major gypsum gathering ground, covering an area of 0.4km², where it will be recycled into cement additives. A monitoring report from 30 September 2014 showed that the waste water was within the safety limits in accordance with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) QCVN 09:2008/BTNMT standard on underground water quality.

Dinh Vu Gypsum JSC was established in 2010 following initial success in gypsum recycling tests. The company has finished the construction of a gypsum recycling plant and has installed 25% of the processing lines, with a capacity of 150,000t/yr per line. The plant, now in its trial run, has provided 10,000t of artificial plaster to the But Son Cement Plant in Ha Nam Province.

DAP has also joined forces with the Vietnam Cement Corporation (Vicem) to develop a project on processing gypsum. The two sides have signed a cooperation agreement, under which Vicem would be responsible for the consumption of the resulting cement additive.