Gypsum industry news

Germany: Wacker’s Silicones division’s sales grew by 16% year-on-year to Euro2.60bn in 2021 from Euro2.24bn in 2020. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 43% to Euro553m from Euro388m. This was attributed to higher selling prices and volumes. Overall the group’s sales increased by 32% to Euro6.21bn and its EBITDA more than doubled to Euro154bn.

Following ‘robust’ demand across all business divisions in the first two months of 2022, chief executive officer Christian Hartel said, “We expect our chemical business to perform well during the rest of the year, and anticipate higher prices, volume growth and positive product-mix effects in this segment.” He added that the direct impact upon sales volumes from the war in Ukraine upon the business would be limited as Commonwealth of Independent States sales represented less than 2% of the group’s sales. However the rise in gas and electricity prices was recognised as a concern. The group added that it had benefited at the start of 2022 from the raw materials and energy it had procured in 2021 under more favourable conditions.

UK: Etex has awarded a contract for construction of its new Euro167m Bristol gypsum wallboard plant in North Somerset to McLaughlin & Harvey. The plant will include a post-consumer gypsum recycling facility and is scheduled for commissioning in 2022.

Russia: Belgium-based ETEX has announced the suspension of all of its Russian activities ‘immediately and until further notice.’ The gypsum wallboard producer operates two sites for the import and sale of fibre cement façade materials near Moscow. It says that it will take care of the 50 colleagues it employs there.

The group said “We will continue to do everything we can for the safety and well-being of all our teammates and hope that peace will prevail quickly.”

Russia/Ukraine: Jörg Schanow, a member of the management board of Knauf, says that the company has no plans to leave the Russian market. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper he said that Russian production sites were still running as normal.

The company has set up crisis management team since the start of the war in Ukraine in late February 2022. It has been meeting daily and discussing the situation with local management in Russia. Schanow said that the biggest business problem so far was the effect of US and European economic sanctions upon Russian banks and the consequences upon moving money between banks, suppliers and customers. The Germany-based company employees 3900 staff at 14 sites in Russia. It originally purchased a gypsum plant at Krasnogorsk near Moscow in 1993.

Knauf also has operations in Ukraine. It closed its gypsum wallboard plant in Donbass in response to the current war on 24 February 2022 ‘as a precaution,’ according to the TZ newspaper. The staff were sent home and the plant will remain closed into further notice. The plant had 589 employees at the end of 2021, none of whom where German nationals.

France: Saint-Gobain’s sales grew by 15.8% year-on-year to Euro44.2bn in 2021 from Euro38.1bn in 2020. Its earnings before taxation, interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBTIDA) rose by 41% to Euro6.20bn from Euro4.42bn. Sales and earnings increased by 4% and 27% compared to 2019 levels before the coronavirus pandemic started. Sales revenue and operation income was reported up in all geographical regions. In North America the group noted that the integration of Continental Building Products had boosted its position in the US gypsum wallboard market and helped it to tap new sales channels.

“The records achieved in 2021 confirm that the group has entered a new post-transformation trajectory in terms of performance: market-beating sales growth, record earnings and margins, a high level of free cash flow generation that has more than doubled compared to previous years, and strong value creation for our shareholders thanks to strict capital allocation and the determined execution of our portfolio optimisation,” said Benoit Bazin, the chief executive officer of Saint-Gobain.

The group completed or signed 37 acquisitions in 2021, including Chryso and GCP Applied Technologies (GCP), marking its rapid expansion into the construction chemicals market. In November 2021 On November 15, 2021, Saint-Gobain said that it had acquired a gypsum plant in Nairobi, Kenya. It will be the company’s first production site in Kenya, where it will also invest in a construction chemicals production line.