Gypsum industry news

Switzerland: Saint-Gobain has started to sell its entire stake in Sika through its subsidiary Schenker-Winkler Holding (SWH). It previously acquired a 10.75% interest in Sika indirectly through the acquisition of 100% of SWH shares from the Burkard family in May 2018 as part of a global agreement with the Burkard family and Sika.

Saint-Gobain attempted to takeover Sika through acquiring a share of the company owned by the Burkard family in 2014. However, a legal counteraction followed and an attempt to transfer shares of Sika from the Burkard family was blocked by a Swiss court in late 2016. Saint-Gobain and Sika eventually ended the takeover attempt in May 2018 by retaining a 10.75% share in Sika, sales of other shares and other benefits. Following a two-year ‘lock-up period’ Saint-Gobain says it decided to dispose of its stake in Sika. It added that Sika chose not to exercise its right of first offer.

Spain: Knauf España has signed an agreement with the Arquitectes per l’Arquitectura association with the aim of supporting sustainable and universal architecture. The partnership compliments other initiatives Knauf holds in the country with the Higher Council of Colleges of Architects of Spain, the Green Building Council, the College of Architects of Madrid, the Alejandro de la Sota Foundations and Architecture and Society.

US: Gypsum wallboard distributor Foundation Building Materials reports that sales of wallboard fell slightly to US$202m in the first quarter of 2020. This was attributed to disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Overall its sales across all business lines rose, in part due to an additional business day in the reporting quarter compared to the same period in 2019. It noted lower sales growth in states with stronger lockdown measures, including Washington, California, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Overall sales in April 2020 were reported as being 20% down year-on-year.

US: The Gypsum Association (GA) has released a revised and updated environmental product declaration (EPD) for 5/8” (1.5875cm) type X North American gypsum boards. Following the standards set in the association’s recently revised product category rules (PCR) for North American gypsum panel products, the EPD provides environmental performance information addressing energy consumption, water consumption, global warming, waste, air emissions and other metrics related to production.

“The Gypsum Association has an ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship. The development and release of this new ISO 21930 compliant, Type III, cradle-to-shipping gate EPD, demonstrates our member companies’ efforts to transparently report environmental impacts as a means of contributing to sustainable design and construction,” said Steve Meima, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Association, executive director of the GA.

Type X gypsum board is commonly installed in commercial, institutional and multifamily/mixed-use facilities. Where fire resistance ratings are required, type X gypsum board is typically specified. The GA has also produced an EPD for glass mat gypsum panel products that will be updated in 2021 under the new PCR.

South Africa: Waster water specialist Talbot is working with a coal producer in the Highveld region to remove gypsum generated as a by-product of its mine water purification process.

As part of a pilot project conducted in March 2020, a hydraulic filter press was used to dewater the solids, dry and press them into briquette form for transportation to end-use customers. The remaining filtrate was directed to an evaporation dam before returning to site processes via a blend line. Talbot says it reduced the waste solids from 84 - 2900mg/l and demonstrated that the technology would extract gypsum at a rate of 100kg/hr on a full-scale site operation. Previously the company has used this method on behalf of a South African platinum producer where the recovery of precious metals from a wastewater stream using the same technology.