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Gypsum industry news
Knauf to build wallboard plant in Kazakhstan
22 June 2023Kazakhstan: 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.
China: Saint-Gobain has inaugurated a new 37Mm2/yr gypsum wallboard plant in Yuzhou, Henan province. The site will also produce 150,000t/yr of plaster. The plant will also use over 400,000t/yr of industrial by-products to increase its sustainability. Other initiatives include using renewable electricity, installing solar panels, using electric-powered forklift trucks and recycling all of the plant’s gypsum waste.
France-based Saint-Gobain has been present in China since 1985 and it employs more than 8000 people. The Yuzhou plant is the company’s sixth unit in the country. Construction of the site was supported by a green financing loan, implemented with BNP Paribas.
France: Expansion plans for a gypsum quarry supporting Placoplatre’s wallboard plant in Chambéry have been scaled back. A 1000 hectare expansion was originally proposed for the Gypse de Maurienne quarry near to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, according to the Le Dauphiné libéré newspaper. However, following local objections, this has been reduced to 60 hectares. The intention by the subsidiary of Saint-Gobain is to secure sufficient raw gypsum supplies for 30 years.
New Zealand: Winstone Wallboards says that it successfully started a test run on the new production line at its new Tauriko gypsum wallboard plant in mid-May 2023. In a statement general manager David Thomas said “The team successfully put ‘slurry on paper’ and ran board down the line and, beyond our initial plan, through the dryer.” He added the company was confident that it would be producing wallboard in the second half of 2023.
Bosnia & Herzegovina: The shareholders assembly of state-owned power company RiTE Ugljevik has approved the signing of contracts for the sale of gypsum and coal with Beijing New Building Materials (BNBM) Ugljevik. The project intends to build a 40Mm2/yr gypsum wallboard plant and it has a budget of Euro50m, according to the Sarajevo Times. RiTE Ugljevik previously agreed to supply 250,000t/yr of flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) to the proposed wallboard plant.
US: Gold Bond Building Products plans to spend US$90m on an upgrade to its Mount Holly gypsum wallboard plant in North Carolina. The project will include installing a railway line and related infrastructure to aid logistics, according to the Gaston Gazette newspaper. It is expected to create 11 new jobs at the site. Construction on the project is expected to be completed in 2024. The affiliate company of National Gypsum has operated a plant at Mount Holly since 2007.
Knauf to build plant in Kyrgyzstan
18 April 2023Kyrgyzstan: Germany-based Knauf is preparing to build a gypsum plant in the south of the country. Alexander Blumhardt, the Executive Manager CIS countries for Knauf Group, said that the company was ready to invest in the country, according to the Trend News Agency. He said that Knauf had already conducted market research and negotiations on the construction of a building materials plant. It is currently studying gypsum deposits in the proposed region.
CertainTeed Gypsum recognised for smart energy management system at Buchanan wallboard plant
14 April 2023US: CertainTeed Gypsum has received the 2023 Better Project Award from the Department of Energy for the company’s smart energy management system at its Buchanan wallboard plant in New York state. The system at the plant, which was designed in-house and consists of over 180 energy meters, allows the staff to track and contextualise energy data, forecast future energy use and tackle actual losses once identified. Within the first three months of installation, the system helped identify several opportunities to reduce energy usage and enabled the plant team to scope process changes and projects to address them. The subsidiary of Saint-Gobain now plans to deploy similar technology at sites throughout North America.
Jay Bachmann, Vice President and General Manager of CertainTeed’s Interior Product Group, said “In a dynamic, continuous production facility like our Buchanan plant, it is essential to have real-time, in-depth data that can help us reduce our energy consumption, and our smart energy management system does just that.” He thanked workers at the Buchanan plant for their efforts.
The Better Project awards recognise manufacturers who improve energy efficiency and competitiveness in the industrial sector. To be considered for an award, projects must deliver significant waste or energy savings and must be discreet, innovative, and replicable in similar industrial facilities.
Norway: Saint-Gobain has started producing net zero CO2 gypsum wallboard at its Fredrikstad plant. This was made possible by switching the power supply for the unit to hydroelectric power from natural gas previously. It worked with state-owned sustainable energy agency Enova on the Euro25m upgrade project. Following the completion of work at the site it will now avoid emitting 23,000t/yr of CO2. Improved heat recovery and process efficiency will reduce energy consumption by 30%. Plus, the company says that the plant’s production capacity has been increased by 40%.
The group says that this is the world's first carbon-neutral wallboard plant and it will enable it to launch a range of products with the lowest carbon footprint on the market in 2023. It added that the this initiative was a clear indication of the company’s commitment to reduce its scope one and two CO2 emissions by 33% by 2030 compared to 2017, with a commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2050
BNBM’s sales take a hit in 2022
14 April 2023China: BNBM’s operating income fell by 6% year-on-year to US$2.90bn in 2022 from US$3.07bn in 2021. Its net profit dropped by 11% to US$457m from US$511m. Parent company China New Building Material (CNBM) reported that its sales volumes of gypsum wallboard declined by 12% to 2.09Bnm2 from 2.38Bnm2. It noted that, despite prices for raw materials and energy increasing in 2022, the poor local real estate market had led to a decline in demand for wallboard. It added that performance in Tanzania had grown in the reporting year and that new projects in Uzbekistan and Thailand remained on track. The group said that its 50 gypsum wallboard production lines had achieved “nearly zero emissions” in 2022.