Gypsum industry news

Austria: The European Commission has approved the formation of a joint venture between Saint-Gobain Austria (Rigips), demolition company Porr Umwelttechnik and waste management company Saubermacher. The project plans to build and operate a gypsum recycling plant in Stockerau.

Canada/UK: Canada-based Solex Thermal Science has purchased UK-based Econotherm for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition is intended to expand Solex’s capacity to help its customers reduce the primary energy consumed to produce industrial goods
Lowy Gunnewiek, the chief executive officer at Solex, said “We at Solex are passionate about working with customers to understand their operational needs. Today’s announcement broadens our overall business portfolio to provide our global client base with an even deeper suite of best-in-class, sustainable solutions that align with their respective environmental, social and governance strategies.”

Solex Thermal Science sells indirect heat exchange products for the heating, cooling and drying of free-flowing granular materials such as solid granules, pellets, beans, seeds and particles. Since 1989 the company has installed more than 900 heat exchangers in more than 50 countries worldwide with applications such as fertiliser, oilseeds and industrial materials such as minerals, sands, chemicals and polymers. More recently it has expanded into the energy-transition sector with collaborations on decarbonisation applications such as industrial waste heat recovery, concentrated solar power and carbon capture.

Econotherm manufactures heat pipe waste heat recuperators, economisers, pre-heaters, steam generators and steam condensers. The company’s patented super conductor heat pipe technology is used in a wide range of applications across many industrial sectors. Its references include supplying a gas to air heat pre-heater on a gypsum kettle exhaust to British Gypsum.

US: CertainTeed plans to invest US$235m in an expansion to its 84Mm²/yr Palatka gypsum wallboard plant in Florida. The La Tribune newspaper has reported that the Saint-Gobain subsidiary will install a second production line to double the plant’s capacity. The company will also carry out work to increase the plant’s energy efficiency.

Eurogypsum added its views on the European Union’s (EU) proposed Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) last month. It wants gypsum to be added to the bill’s list of critical and strategic raw materials. It is not surprising that the European federation of national associations of producers of gypsum products might want to do this. However, when compared to rare earth minerals of the sort required to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EV), gypsum doesn’t seem all that, well, rare.

What may be rare though is people’s patience with new gypsum mines. The association’s argument is that gypsum is indeed abundant in the EU but that accessing it is increasingly becoming difficult. The EU’s sustainability agenda has made the energy efficiency of buildings as important as reducing CO₂ emissions from the transportation sector. Gypsum and other materials used to make lightweight building materials are a way of renovating existing buildings and improving energy efficiency. Therefore it suggests that the act should either recognise gypsum as strategic or introduce a new ‘essential’ category. This would then make the process of extracting gypsum more easy.

This approach ties back to initiatives such as one by the Federal Commission on Geosciences (BLA-GEO) in Germany, which previously started to compile an inventory of the nation’s gypsum deposits with the intention of putting this in front of policy makers. Nor is the gypsum sector alone in targeting the potentially lucrative retrofit market. In May 2023 Daikin, Danfoss, Knauf Insulation, Rockwool, Saint-Gobain, Signify and Velux signed an agreement to promote building energy efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Radek Bedrna, Knauf Insulation’s managing director for Eastern Europe and Middle East, noted that two thirds of the 43.6m homes in single- and multi-family houses in the CEE region were reportedly built before 1989 and are energy inefficient. The European Commission places transport-related greenhouse gas emissions at about 25% of the region’s total. Renovating buildings fully, by contrast, could save up to 5% of the EU’s emissions. Targeting transport emissions may be a higher priority for the EU but the savings from retrofitting are not trivial either.

Then - on cue in mid-June 2023 - there was an example of the difficulties gypsum product producers can face with building new quarries or enlarging old ones when expansion plans for a gypsum quarry supporting Placoplatre’s wallboard plant in Chambéry in France were scaled back from local opposition. The subsidiary of Saint-Gobain met similar issues in late 2022 when a public enquiry started examining its plans to build a new quarry at Fort Vaujours, Seine-Saint-Denis. This site is intended to serve the Vaujours gypsum wallboard plant as a replacement for its Bernouille quarry after the latter closes in 2026. This one has a happier ending, for the gypsum sector at least, since the project received an environmental permit in late May 2023. One of the key issues that came up in the enquiry was a disagreement over the means of extraction. A local environmental group favoured underground mining but an open-cast approach was preferred by the producer as it would yield much more gypsum. The latter was eventually approved.

What this suggests is that making gypsum an ‘essential’ raw material in Europe requires engagement with the general public as much as legislators. Some people may not like having a wind farm built near where they live but the chances are that there will be less opposition than building a new coal mine. Digging up new gypsum deposits should be presented as more like the former than the latter. Whizzing around in a new EV is generally seen as being more fun than bragging about how great the lamba factor is for one’s house. However, this may change if energy prices keep ticking upwards. Gypsum may not be rare but Eurogypsum and others can make a strong case for it being essential.

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.

Italy: Assogesso, the Association of Italian Gypsum Producers, has appointed Gaetano Terrasini as its president. Terrasini is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Saint-Gobain Italia. He has held the position of CEO since 2020. Prior to this he has worked for Saint-Gobain and related companies for over 20 years.

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.

India: Saint-Gobain has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Vibrant Energy, a subsidiary of Macquarie Asset Management's Green Investment Group (MAM-GIG), to provide wind and solar electricity to six local sites. The 20-year PPA will start in 2024 and bring the company’s national renewable electricity share to 65% in 2025. Under the agreement, Vibrant Energy will provide Saint-Gobain with 189GWhr/yr of renewable electricity. The company says that it is on target to achieve 100% renewable electricity in India by 2030 by replacing fossil fuels with biomass, using waste heat recovery and other measures.

Saint-Gobain India operates 76 manufacturing plants in the country including four gypsum wallboard units.

France: Saint-Gobain’s sales grew by 5% on a like-for-like basis by Euro12.4bn in the first quarter of 2023 from Euro12bn in the same quarter in 2022. In real-terms sales increased in each business segment apart from Northern Europe, where a “sharp” downturn in new construction was reported. Sales volumes fell by 6%, with volumes down in all business segments apart from High Performance Solutions. Particular sales growth was noted in Southern Europe - Middle East & Africa due to a resilient renovation market. Gypsum wallboard and insulation products were reported as driving sales in North America.

US: 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.