Gypsum industry news

US: Xeriant will begin to produce its Nexboard alternative wallboard for sale at some time in the near-term future after making further recipe adjustments focused on ensuring fire safety. The company has contracted large-scale production to a ‘well-established’ producer, with which it is currently in the setup stage. It is also in talks with a bank about finance.

CEO Keith Duffy said "After initial fire testing at a national certification laboratory in June 2024, we engaged a polymer chemist to refine Nexboard's composition with a focus on passing the rigorous NFPA 286 fire safety test. This step followed several modifications in the base material and fire-retardant compositions and the finalisation of a production method that ensures the highest-volume, best quality and lowest-cost output. This extensive research and testing over many months has led us to believe that the additional changes will enable Nexboard to meet or even surpass the existing code requirements for building materials used in our targeted applications."

India: Residents of Baramulla have commenced protests against renewed gypsum mining in the district in Jammu and Kashmir. Local press has reported that the protestors claim the operations cause ‘serious’ harm to health and agriculture. The village council of Salamabad responded by temporarily suspending operations at the site in question.

Spain: Knauf España has expanded its range of oversize gypsum wallboard systems with the launch of its new Maxiboard boards. The producer said that the boards’ 900mm thickness allows for a 30% reduction in studs, screws and joint treatment in installation. Maxiboard boards are optimal for use in large spaces, including in shopping centres, cinemas and data centres. They offer EI 240-certified fire resistance in systems up to 6m high and EI 120-certified fire resistance in systems up to 11m high.

US: Xeriant has hired the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and another accreditation agency to test its NEXBOARD waste plastic-based wallboard for the construction market. The producer says that tests will include the NFPA 286 and the ASTM E84 fire safety tests, as well as tests of tensile strength, hardness, water resistance, acoustic and thermal insulating performance, and volatile organic compound emissions.

Belgium: Etex has launched its new Road to Sustainability 2030 circularity and decarbonisation strategy. The strategy sets out the company’s 2030 ambitions under five headings. Under health, safety and well-being, Etex aims to reach zero fatalities, burnouts or incidents of harm; under customer engagement, it aims to build a sustainable roadmap for each product platform by 2025; under diversity, equity and inclusion, it will extend its policies, procedures and practices across all teams. Meanwhile, under decarbonisation, Etex will reduce Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 35% compared to 2018, and under circularity it will use over 20% of circular input as raw material, send zero waste to landfill, use 100% recycled packaging and reduce plastic packaging by 20% compared to 2018, offer a product take-back service across 80% of its European markets and dedicate 50% of its innovation resources to sustainability.

Chief executive officer Bernard Delvaux said “Today Etex has sustainability as a guiding compass of business transformation, with concrete objectives that reflect the company’s ambition. We are on an exciting journey towards improving sustainability in the short and long term. We know there is a long road ahead, which is why we invite all our stakeholders to further support us in becoming a leading benchmark in our industry.”

Ukraine: The Russian military has reportedly damaged Knauf’s Donbass gypsum wallboard plant in an airstrike. Ukrainian Donetsk regional military administration chief Pavlo Kyrylenko posted on social media on 17 May 2022 that firefighters were working to contain and quell the blaze at the plant in Donetsk Region. Nobody was injured in the attack.

Knauf sent home the Knauf Gips Donbass plant’s 589 employees ‘as a precaution’ at the outbreak of war on 24 February 2022.

Knauf maintains 14 facilities with a total of 3900 employees in Russia.

US: Saint-Gobain plans to invest a total of US$400m in expansions to its operations including gypsum operations at four US sites. The group says that the sites are located in California and the Southeastern US. It said that the new capacities will apply the most advanced available technologies for industrial performance, safety and sustainability. This will reduce waste by 50% and CO2 emissions by 20% from current levels, according to the company.

Saint-Gobain said it hopes that the investments will strengthen its leadership in North America and accelerate its growth in the region by enriching its comprehensive range of solutions for light and sustainable construction.

Belgium: Etex’s 2020 Sustainability Report has recorded the company’s progress towards its sustainability goals under four headings. Under the heading ‘carbon neutrality,’ it produced and purchased 72% of its electricity consumption renewably, compared to 14% in 2019. Under ‘health, safety and wellbeing,’ its lost-time accidents per million working hours fell by 36% year-on-year to 1.4 from 2.2. Under ‘waste management and circularity,’ it reduced its waste generation by 8.9% to 254Mt from 278Mt and reduced the share of its waste sent to landfill to 18% from 26%. Lastly, under ‘diversity and inclusion,’ 28% of the company’s newly hired staff were women, compared to a group total share of 19%.

CEO Paul van Oyen said “At Etex, we have a clear commitment to helping build a better, sustainable future. We seek to offer holistic value to our customers, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders, as we continue to decouple our growth from environmental and social impacts. To help achieve this, we focus on lightweight materials and prefabricated construction. These methods offer advantages such as reduced raw material use, energy consumption, waste and emissions. Even more, they contribute to enhanced long-term circularity by creating opportunities for deconstruction, reuse and recycling.”

UK: British Gypsum has signed the Building a Safer Future (BSF) charter as part of its wider commitment to raise building standards across the construction industry and provide transparency to its customers. The charter comprises five commitments that require registered signatories to put building safety first. The commitments include spearheading change and being the voice of building safety within the industry, being transparent in sharing key information with residents, clients, contractors and other stakeholders, and making safety a key factor when selecting construction partners.

Marketing director Stacey Temprell said “We recognise that becoming a registered signatory of the BSF charter is an important first step towards achieving the culture and behavioural change required in relation to the charter’s objectives around building safety. In confirming our support as a registered signatory, we will now be working to ensure that we embed the principles of the charter into our organisation’s activities.” Temprell added “In addition to signing the Building a Safer Future charter, we are making further improvements to ensure our product and system performance data is always up to date and accurate, so joining like-minded businesses in signing the Charter is a great way for us to demonstrate our commitment to this shift in building standards and put safety first.”

US: National Gypsum’s Shippingport wallboard plant in Pennsylvania and its Anniston paper plant in Alabama have both won the Lloyd H Yeager Award for working 1 million hours or more worked without a lost time accident (LTA). The Shippingport plant reached 2 million hours without a LTA. The award is organised by the Gypsum Association (GA) and 13 plants have been recognised on this occasion. The Anniston paper plant makes face paper for National Gypsum’s wallboard products including the distinctive purple paper used in the company’s Purple product line.

“Under Lloyd H Yeager’s leadership, the GA ran a robust safety training program for the gypsum industry and was very successful in emphasising the importance of workplace safety among GA member companies,” said Stephen H Meima, executive director of the GA.