National Gypsum’s Next Move is to Expand Wallboard Capacity and Mining Westward

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). National Gypsum Company (Charlotte, North Carolina) recently announced its preferred site for a new $140 million, one billion square-foot per year gypsum wallboard manufacturing plant in Eloy, Arizona, although the company is reviewing optional sites in Pinal and Maricopa counties. A final site selection should be made later this summer.

Click on the image at right to see a map of National Gypsum's Phoenix area plants.

National Gypsum currently operates three gypsum wallboard manufacturing plants west of Texas, two in California and one in Phoenix, Arizona. The new plant site in Eloy will be closer to the company’s gypsum rock quarry, which is located in Winkelman, Arizona, than the existing Phoenix plant and will have access to rail and highway infrastructure since it is adjacent to Interstate 10.

The Winkelman gypsum quarry will be expanded to supply 800,000 tons per year of gypsum product to the Phoenix plant and the new Eloy plant, once it comes online during July of 2008. The Winkelman quarry will process 1.5 million tons per year of gypsum rock to produce the 800,000 tons of gypsum feedstock for the Arizona gypsum wallboard manufacturing operations. The Winkelman processing plant will be relocated about half a mile from the current location and a new crushing and screening plant will be constructed. That plant is scheduled to be operational by the first quarter of 2008.

The western expansion comes on the heels of the company’s new high-speed synthetic gypsum wallboard manufacturing plant, which is currently under construction in Mount Holly, North Carolina. The Mount Holly plant, which is scheduled to come online in July of 2007, will also produce one billion square feet per year of wallboard. However, feedstock for the plant will come from synthetic gypsum, a by-product of flue gas desulfurization scrubbers, and will be supplied by Duke Power.

The western expansion is a switch for wallboard manufacturers, which have focused the majority of gypsum wallboard expansions in Eastern states to take advantage of by-product synthetic gypsum availability and to be closer to expanding home construction markets in the Southeast.

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