US: The US gypsum wallboard industry produced 623Mm² of gypsum wallboard during the first quarter of 2023, down by 1% year-on-year and by 1.2% quarter-on-quarter. The industry exported 20.1Mm² of gypsum wallboard in the quarter under review, corresponding to 19% year-on-year growth. Canada received 19Mm² of the product, 94% of total exports for the quarter.

United States Geological Survey (USGS) data show 4% year-on-year growth in US gypsum wallboard imports. The country imported 23Mm² during the year, 20.9Mm² (91%) of it from Mexico and 1.84Mm² (8%) from Canada. Total calcined gypsum consumption was 4.66Mt in the US in the first quarter of 2023, up by 9.9% year-on-year from 4.24Mt in the first quarter of 2022.

Japan: Chiyoda-Ute is preparing to launch a gypsum board product, Chiyoda Circular Gypsum Board, from June 2023 that uses 100% recycled gypsum. The company says it is the first product of its kind in the world to use 100% waste gypsum board collected from construction sites. Manufacturing will also be carbon neutral through the use of wood chips to heat the plant’s boiler and electricity supplied from renewable sources.

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.

Japan: Yoshino Gypsum has developed a new gypsum wallboard fixing method called ‘Smart JG’ that uses adhesive and a magnet. It is intended to replace the usual installation method using power tools, screws and nails. The Smart JG method uses a special tape-like solid adhesive ‘JG02’ and a special tool ‘Super Mag Chuck’ to fix boards to the iron base and layer them. Notably, this new approach does not use screws and does not have staple marks on the surface of the board allowing for more decorative applications. This method is also quieter as power tools are not used. The patent for ‘Smart JG’ is currently pending.