Wallboard woes

ls an end to the shortage in sight?

Itr/ITH gypsum wallboard manuV Y facturers placing dealers on allotment and their customers crying for more product, horror stories abound.

A builder in Dallas, Tx., had to post a guard at night to prevent theft of sheetrock from the job site.

Instead of shipping wallboard West from the East, which has a greater concentration of manufacturing facilities, an Arkansas truck line has been transporting wallboard from the West Coast to Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia and Alabama. When one customer called to complain about strap marks on sheetrock, the trucker said he gladly would take back the entire load. "Oh, let's just forget about the strap marks," the customer quickly responded. "We'll keep it."

Builders in the Southeast are importing drywall by the boatload. A plant in Norway is cutting to U.S. measurements instead of metric to ship the product to Florida.

Relief will not be immediate. Reportedly, all gypsum plants continue operating three shifts a day, seven days a week, yet shortages worsen. The problem is skyrocketing demand in residential and construction. remodeling and manufactured housing coupled during during the construction of the mid-1980s was about 20 billion sq. ft. a year. Since 1990, wallboard demand has increased by 48Vo. with the fact that, according to the Gypsum Association, a new drywall plant hasn't opened in the U.S. in l0 years. And, it takes two to three years and approximately $80 million to build a new state-of-the-art facility.

Projections indicate that within four years demand will continue to rise to 32 million sq. ft. Manufacturers hope that by that time capacity will have surpassed demand.

"The producers I've spoken with feel that by the end of this calendar year things should get back to normal," says Gypsum Association executive director Jerry A. Walker. "By that time, 3.5 billion sq. ft. will be added to industry capacity. But then, in the first quarter of 1999 usage was up lVo. It will take longer to catch up if this trend line continues."

As of January l, 1999, the U.S. gypsum industry's capacity was at 28.84 billion sq. ft., with Canada producing about 3.87 billion sq. ft. Demand, meanwhile, hit a record 27.8 billion sq. ft. in 1998. In comparison, demand

Industry leader USG is nearing completion of a new plant in Bridgeport, Al.; building a $ll2 million plant in Aliquippa, Pa., to open early next year and a 700 million sq. ft. capacity plant in Rainier, Or., to open a year later, and more than tripling capacity at plants in East Chicago, In. (2000), and Plaster City, Ca. (2001).

Later this year, Georgia-Pacific will open a $65 million gypsum wallboard plant in Wheatfield, In., with an annual capacity of 400 million sq. ft.

Also by year's end, Standard Gypsum LLC, a joint venture between Temple-Inland Forest Products and Caraustar Industries, will unveil a plant in Cumberland, Tn., with a 700 million sq. ft. annual capacity.

In late 1999, National Gypsum Co. will open its twentieth gypsum.wallboard facility, a $79.1 million, 600 million sq. ft.-a-year plant in Shippingport, Pa. The company is also expanding its Baltimore, Md., plant (on line in January, to be at full capacity this summer) and Tampa, Fl., plant (adding 400 million sq. ft. in capacity by next year), will build an $80 million, 700 million sq. ft. capacity operation near St. Louis, Mo. (in 2002-2003), and will upgrade or rcplace its Ft. Dodge, Ia., facility.

Lafarge Corp. is building a $90 million gypsum wallboard plant in northern Kentucky to open next spring.

Celotex Corp. is constructing a $75 million, 400,000-sq. ft. gypsum wallboard plant in Carollton, Ky., to come on line by July 2000. Annual capacity: 700 million sq. ft.

In all, the additions and expansions should boost the industry's overall capacity by ZOVo to about 34 billion. Hopefully, your customers can wait.