Gypsum industry news
Gyprock holds prices in response to coronavirus
06 April 2020Australia: Gypsum wallboard product manufacturer Gyprock has decided to put on hold a planned price increase due to start in June 2020 in response to the coronavirus outbreak. It said that it was doing everything it could to make it sites safe for customers and staff and that its plants, warehouses and trade stores remained open.
British Gypsum shuts operations down
01 April 2020UK: France-based Saint-Gobain subsidiary British Gypsum has announced the suspension of non-essential operations until 22 April 2020, subject to regular review in light of government advice. British Gypsum managing director Matt Pullen said, “Further information on when new orders can be placed and deliveries made will be available nearer the time, after the safe re-start of our operations.”
The company says that it will retain a ‘small-scale customer services, operations and logistics team to be able to provide drylining products to support those NHS and other Covid-19 response essential infrastructure and building projects.’
Saint-Gobain North America offers coronavirus help
01 April 2020US: France-based Saint-Gobain subsidiary has reached out to ‘federal, state and local government to understand where and how’ it can redeploy ‘technologies, manufacturing operations and human expertise to help them address the covid-19 crisis.’ It also extended the offer of assistance to its partners, suppliers and customers ‘in their own efforts to help.’
Simotix Connect 400 forms basis of Currax and Siemens joint Industry 4.0 pilot project
24 March 2020Germany: Currax and Siemens have announced their collaboration on a mill operations digitisation pilot project involving the Simotics Connect 400 motor data collector and transmitter. They hope that analysis of data processed via the Simotics 400 will better enable the remote operating of mills ‘to increase efficiency and component life’ and speeding the shift towards automation and production that is resilient to crises such as the coronavirus outbreak.
Additional hurdles for troubled Boral
23 March 2020Australia: Boral, already dealing with financial difficulty even before the coronavirus pandemic, has withdrawn its full-year profit guidance and warned that it will likely have to re-work its complex wallboard buyout transaction with USG / Knauf. The US$441m deal, announced in August 2019 with Knauf will likely need to be changed, after the Australasian component of it attracted the attention of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Under the complicated deal between USG Boral and Knauf, Boral was to pay US$200m for the other 50% of USG Boral that it did not already own in Australia, and US$241m for a 50% stake of the plasterboard joint venture in Asia. Knauf then had a call option to return to 50% ownership of the Australasian business within five years.
However, the ACCC is now looming as a roadblock. "As Boral and Knauf work with regulators as part of an ongoing process to obtain the relevant approvals, Boral's view now is that the ACCC is unlikely to approve the call option in relation to the Australian and New Zealand business," said Boral in a statement. This means a range of other options will be considered for the transaction.
Saint-Gobain increases profit by 207% in 2019
28 February 2020France: Saint-Gobain’s net profit in 2019 was Euro1.45bn, up by 207% year-on-year from Euro474m in 2018. Its net sales were Euro42.6bn, up by 1.9% from Euro41.8bn in 2018. Saint-Gobain chairman CEO Pierre-André de Chalendar praised the year’s performance in spite of a ‘less supportive market environment in the second half.’ He said, “For 2020, in a more uncertain market environment, Saint-Gobain should continue to benefit from its attractive positioning and from the results of its ‘Transform & Grow’ initiative, and is targeting a further like-for-like increase in operating income with an uncertainty about the impact of the coronavirus.”