Gypsum industry news

China: 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.

New Zealand: Winstone Wallboards says it will increase the supply of gypsum wallboard available for distribution by merchants by 1Mm² from July to September 2022. It said this will equate to a 7 – 8% increase of various types of plasterboard.

Fletcher Building chief executive Ross Taylor said “The increases we will be bringing to market are possible because we will soon commission changes to the configuration of our manufacturing that we have been working on over the past three months which will produce extra, locally produced, volumes. We have also been able to secure and will import additional board from an Australian manufacturer that we can feed into our supply chain.” He added that the allocation model the company has introduced had started to help supply levels and that the completion of the new plant at Tauranga in June 2023 would also help.

In early June 2022 social housing developer Simplicity Living said it had cancelled all of its orders of Fletcher Building Gib board. In an interview with Stuff, Shane Brealey - the managing director of Simplicity Living, said that the company had decided to import wallboard instead. It said it could source equivalent wallboard products at a 20% discount or more. It added that it was taking it eight weeks to import wallboard from South-East Asia compared to eight months from Auckland.

Winstone Wallboards responded to the criticism by saying it previously had been importing wallboard from Etex Australia for around six months until the end of 2021. The arrangement ended as Australia also has a wallboard shortage. However, it added that the import arrangement might restart from August 2022 onwards.

BNBM has announced two overseas gypsum wallboard plants since the start of 2022. In Early January 2022 the China-based producer said it was going to build a 40Mm²/yr plant in Thailand as part of a joint-venture with Sinoma International Engineering and its subsidiary Sinoma (Thailand). Notably the unit is also to be equipped with a decorative gypsum line. The estimated project investment is US$55m. Then, in February 2022 BNBM revealed plans to build a 40Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant in Bosnia & Herzegovina. This one is a joint venture with Rudnik i Termoelektrana Ugljevik (RiTE Ugljevik), a subsidiary of the local state-run power company. The project will be situated next to the coal-fired power plant at Ugljevik. No surprises then for what source of raw gypsum the wallboard plant is likely to be using! The estimated project cost is Euro50m.

These two projects join a pair of other plants the producer is also cooking up internationally. In mid-2019 it revealed new wallboard plants in Tanzania and Uzbekistan. The former is a 15Mm²/yr plant to be run via a subsidiary. It was reported to be in a construction phase in mid-2021. The latter is a 40Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant to be built in the Kokand Free Economic Zone, Fergana Region in Uzbekistan via a wholly-owned subsidiary. So far it is reportedly in the preparation stage. The company also has a number of wallboard plant projects in development at home in China, including plants currently being built at Shuozhou in Shanxi province and Yichang in Hubei province.

During the first half of 2021, BNBM’s operating income rose by 46% year-on-year to US$1.59bn from US$1.09bn. 65% of this was generated from its gypsum wallboard business sales. Overall, parent company CNBM reported gypsum wallboard sales of 2.01Bm2 in 2020 from BNBM and Taishan Gypsum.

A subsidiary of CNBM building production capacity outside of China will sound familiar to those readers who follow the cement industry. The industry has been using the Belt and Road Initiative to move redundant domestic capacity abroad as the local market has become saturated and environmental measures bite. Chinese cement production capacity per capita has seemed extraordinarily high by international norms over the last 20 years. Yet, gypsum wallboard production capacity per capita is a wildly different story. Global Gypsum Directory 2021 data suggests that the US had a rate of 12.7m²/capita compared to 2.4m²/capita in China.

With this in mind it makes one wonder why BNBM is bothering internationally given the market scope at home as China meets its climate commitments. As the move by some western multinational building material companies over the last year or so suggests, the future may lie in light building materials. On the other hand BNBM/CNBM may simply have its eye on the bigger picture. Just like its international competitors, it doesn’t want to miss out on the opportunity for market enlargement or being left behind if the ratio between heavy and light building materials switches. If it really means business, then the next steps could be wallboard plants in Western Europe or even the US. A US-based joint-venture for BNBM might help to make everyone forget the unending legal debacle with Taishan’s imports.

Oman: Oman exported 8.74Mt of gypsum in 2021. Data from Oman-based Zawawi Minerals shows that the country had a 44% share of the gypsum export market to Asian, the Middle East and south-east Africa. Its main destination was India, followed by Bangladesh. Thailand followed with exports of 4.91Mt for both gypsum and anhydrite (32%) and then Iran with 4.2Mt (21%). Other exporting nations included Australia, Mexico and Bhutan. Total recorded exports to the region were 19.8Mt.

Thailand: BNBM plans to launch a joint venture with Sinoma International Engineering and its subsidiary Sinoma (Thailand). The new company will build and operate a 40Mm²/yr gypsum wallboard plant in the country. BNBM says that the plant will additionally be equipped with a 4Mm²/yr decorative gypsum line.

France: Saint-Gobain says that its overall group activity fell to 60% of 2019 levels in April 2020 due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Since then its level of activity surpassed 80% ‘at comparable working days, with large variations by market and country,’ according to Regulatory News Service. The group expects a ‘challenging’ second quarter 2020 before a recovery in the second half of the year. It continues to preserve cash and reduce costs.

In Europe the group reported that, by the end of May 2020, Nordic countries had almost reached 2019 levels. Germany and Eastern Europe were still seeing activity levels below those of 2019. The UK has seen activity levels progress by around 10%/week since a low point in mid-April 2020 when activity were at a ‘virtual standstill’, reaching around 70% of 2019 levels in the last week of May 2020.

In the group’s Middle East & Africa region activity levels surpassed 50% of 2019 levels since a low in mid-April 2020. In France, activity in distribution came close to the 2019 level in the last week of May 2020, but with big differences by region and brand. Spain and Italy are picking up gradually, but remain below the average level of the region. The Netherlands remains close to a normal level of activity, while the Middle East and Africa remain impacted to varying degrees.

North America has reported a ‘contrasting situation state by state,’ but has shown improvement since the low point of mid-April 2020. Activity in May 2020 moved closer to 2019 levels due to ‘significant’ volumes in exterior solutions and a rebound in gypsum volumes. In Latin America, despite the health situation remaining difficult, activity is picking up week after week, from 40% in mid-April 2020 to around 80% in May 2020 with a ramp-up in Brazil.

In Asia-Pacific sales have now reached 2019 levels following the gradual restart of all its production sites in China in March 2020. India remains ‘severely’ disrupted with the restart dependent on the relaxing of confinement measures. The situation is varied across South-East Asia with a rebound in Vietnam where activity has surpassed 2019 levels, but disruptions still relatively significant in Thailand and neighbouring countries.

Thailand: The Department of Primary Industries and Mines (DPIM) has lowered Thailand’s gypsum export quota to 6.0Mt in 2020, the same as in 2019 and down by 17% from it original 2020 quota of 7.0Mt.

Thailand’s 2019 gypsum exports were 5.04Mt.

Indonesia: PT Siam-Indo Gypsum, a joint venture of Wings Group and Thailand’s Siam Cement Group, has ordered a Gebr. Pfeiffer MPS 180 GC vertical mill for grinding, drying, classifying and calcining gypsum at its 20Mm2/yr Bekasi plant in Java. With a total drive power of 210kW, it will mill 40t/h of gypsum to a fineness of 100 µm.

Australia: USG-Boral’s earnings have fallen due to a poor construction market in South Korea. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 6% year-on-year to US$170m in the financial year to 30 June 2019 from US$181m in the previous year. Its revenue grew by 2% to US$1.08bn from US$1.06bn. The joint venture said that, excluding South Korea, earnings were ‘steady’ as lower earnings from Indonesia, China and the Philippines were offset by increased contributions from Thailand, Vietnam and India, as well as a continued strong contribution from Australia.

The company also announced that Boral has entered into an agreement with Germany’s Knauf to form an expanded 50:50 plasterboard joint venture in Asia and for Boral to return to 100% ownership of USG Boral Australia & New Zealand. Completion of the deal is subject to regulatory approval. It follows the acquisition of USG by Germany’s Knauf in early 2019.

Australia: USG Boral’s earnings have been hit by competition in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, higher input costs including paper and a one-off cost. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBTIDA) were negatively affected by a one-off cost of US$8m associated with a three-month closure of the port of Thevenard in South Australia and an unfavourable operational reserve adjustment in India. Its EBITDA fell by 6% year-on-year to US$196m in the financial year to 30 June 2018 from US$207m in the same period in 2017.

However, despite this its sales revenue rose by 7% to US$1.15bn from US$1.08bn. This was attributed to continued adoption of its Sheetrock products and technical board in Australia, Korea, China and Thailand. Overall board volumes increased by 3% year-on-year and technical board, which represents 20% of volumes, grew by 20%. Gypsum wallboard volumes grew in Australia and China, and ‘strong’ price gains were achieved in South Korea and China.

“This long-term growth business has delivered impressive and uninterrupted year on year growth since the formation of the joint-venture in 2014, with FY2018 being a consolidation year. Australia, Korea and China delivered strong top line growth in FY2018, offsetting pressures in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam and some unexpected one-off cost impacts,” said chief executive officer and managing director Mike Kane. He added that the company is currently considering an expanded joint-venture with Germany’s Knauf in relation to its proposed acquisition of USG. However, Boral is also considering a return to 100% Boral ownership.