The fifth Global Gypsum Conference took place at the Corinthia Towers Hotel in Prague, 18-19 April 2005, and was attended by 260 delegates from 32 countries, the largest gathering of gypsum professionals ever. A major exhibition was held concurrently with the conference, featuring 28 suppliers of services and equipment. After the conference, a field-trip for gypsum producers took place to the paper mill of the Moritz J. Weig company, in Mayen, Germany.

Start at the beginning

Before the conference itself started, around 30 delegates took part in a tour of the heart of historic Prague, guided by a guide who was to chaperone the entire spouse tour programme, and who was highly-praised by all attendees. Following the opening of registration, around 150 delegates attended a welcome reception in the conference and exhibition foyer, serenaded by a jazz band, and renewing old acquantainces. The reception was kindly sponsored by Lafarge Gypsum.

Exhibition Alongside the Global Gypsum Conference was the largest-ever exhibition of gypsum-related products and services, featuring 28 exhibition stands from vendors from around the world. The exhibition was open at all times throughout the conference, so that delegates could choose when to visit: all coffee breaks also took place in the exhibition area.

Conference programme

Following the official opening of the conference presentation programme, the first keynote was given by Bruce Slatton, managing director of Lafarge Gypsum UK, and the current president of Eurogypsum, the European gypsum association. The question behind the presentation, ‘The gypsum industry and sustainability: threat or opportunity?’ was answered with a qualified answer: ‘both.’ Bruce made the point that although synthetic gypsum will become more important to the European gypsum industry, the sector must still work hard to preserve its options to use natural gypsum: options that are becoming increasingly constrained by encroaching European legislation. Bruce also pointed out legislative trends towards reducing the maximum weight of units of building materials that can be moved by workers (be they bags of cement or sheets of wallboard): Gypsum blocks in the Netherlands currently have a maximum weight of 18kg, but in 2007 this must be reduced to 14kg, and in Denmark they must be lighter than 11kg. He suggested that this has potentially significant knock-on effects, not only for the production capacity of wallboard plants, but also for the competitiveness of wallboard versus other building materials.

The second presentation, by Nick Wigen of Grenzebach AKI, moved to a different subject area entirely, since it looked at the potential cost savings that can be extracted by applying co-generation to plasterboard production. Large-scale co-generation plants (25-100MW) can produce many times the requirement of the adjacent plasterboard plant, which is typically in the 2-4MW range, but they can then sell the vast majority of their electrical energy to the grid. Nick gave as an example the Pabco Gypsum plant at Las Vegas, which has an 85MW combined cycle plant adjacent to a 42Mm2/year plasterboard plant. The power plant supplies the wallboard plant with all of its electrical requirements, as well as supplying its entire needs for hot gas (calcination and dryer) from the exhaust of its turbines. The second category of power generating facilities are much smaller, typically generating only the electrical power needs of the plant. As a consequence, they are much simpler and cheaper to operate. Fuel and electrical costs, as well as the reliability of the power-generating sets, are the crux factors that control the economics of the installation.

Henrik Lund-Nielsen spoke on his company’s wallboard recycling model, which has had success in Scandinavia and which is now being applied in North America.

Bob Bruce of Innogyps Inc. then gave a fascinating paper on the impact of US environmental policy on global gypsum supply. His main point was that coal-fired power stations in the US will increasingly be obliged to fit scrubbers, and will be making huge amounts of synthetic gypsum in the future, almost exclusively in the eastern half of the US. This huge supply of cheap (or free?) synthetic gypsum will have a profound effect on the industry over the next quarter century and beyond (see Global Gypsum Magazine April 2005).

Michael Gardner, executive director of the US Gypsum Association, then gave an overview of the current status of the gypsumboard industry in the US, and described very healthy levels of board demand and shipment, partly due to an increase in the size of American homes, although home renovation is also spurring demand.

After these more ‘general’ papers, the conference moved on to those with more ‘technical’ content. First of these was given by Anthony Hartell of NDC Infrared Engineering, who spoke about the application of near infrared spectroscopy to on-line gypsum phase analysis, while Vlad Kocman gave an overview of a more traditional ‘wet-chemical’ method for the quantitative determination of mineral impurities in natural gypsum, using XRD. Christer Olofsson of Limab also spoke on the measurement of gypsum: However, he spoke on Limab’s new laser-based width, edge profile and edge angle sensor for wallboard, and the company’s Argos surface inspection system. Clyde Steffens of Automation Industries then proceeded to give an overview of his company’s AccuScan quality control system. Finishing the day, Steve Werrell of PCME spoke of his company’s advanced particulate monitoring solutions for the gypsum industry: EN14181 in Europe and MACT in the US have meant that plants are now coming under increasing pressure to install monitoring equipment.

Gala Dinner Following the end of the first day’s presentations, delegates boarded buses for the journey to the Villa Drevcici, an unusual destination which is basically a medieval Czech farm which has been preserved into the 21st century. Delegates were treated to a display of gypsy dancing, before dressing in the smocking costumes of five centuries ago, and enjoying a feast in a very rustic style. There was a good deal of ribaldry and swordplay during the Gala Dinner, which was generously sponsored by GEO Specialty Chemicals. After the feast and a brief interval of medieval games, delegates were treated to a night-time display of fire-eating and ‘whirling,’ which was a fitting end to the evening. It was certainly an unusual and memorable evening.

Second day

The second day of the conference started with a paper on an oft-neglected topic: the lubrication of the plasterboard manufacturing process. The paper was given by Klaus Holz, who convinced the delegates that lubrication in the correct manner and with the correct lubricant - and not necessarily the cheapest lubricant - is a good idea in the modern cost-conscious gypsum plant.

In the next paper, Alfred Brosig of Grenzebach BSH compared roller mill calcining and hammer mill calcining. He made the point that every project must be examined carefully, on a case-by-case basis, and by experienced workers with first-class technical facilities at their disposal.

Gianluca Bottacin of Italian company Bedeschi then spoke on the company’s case studies in gypsum crushing and handling (and in fact the company gives some details of its project for BPB in Italy in this issue). Also included in this issue is an article by Clyde Materials Handling, concerning the effective pneumatic conveying of gypsum: their presentation at the conference concluded that it pays to study the material to be conveyed very carefully before specifying the equipment to be used for conveying.

Mike Fenton of Aecometric Corporation then gave an impressive presentation on low emission burners for gypsum calcining, and detailed not only the initial development of the burners, but a thorough improvement programme which has been applied to the design of the burners to futher optimise their performance. The result is that the burners can be used in a wide variety of industrial installations, and with spectacularly low emissions.

After lunch on this second day of the conference, Steven Schwartz spoke on behalf of a team of authors from the Lyondell Chemical Company, on the subject of ‘Polycarboxylate comb co-polymer dispersants and foaming agents for achieving target properties at reduced water levels.’ Despite the unprepossessing title, this presentation focused on the hottest topic in the industry at the moment: how to make the board using less water (which has to be eradicated from the product in the drier, using increasingly expensive energy). Perhaps surprisingly, the authors’ conclusions were not to use more chemicals, but to use increasingly sophisticated chemicals in a more sophisticated fashion. Backing up the team’s research was an impressive substudy of bubble size and distribution in the core of the wallboard using a computed tomography (‘CAT’) scan - as far as is known, a world-first for the gypsum industry.

Johns Manville then proceeded to give a paper on improving chopped glass fibre flow consistency, which concluded that improving the flow rate consistency of the chopped product allows the wallboard manufacturers to reduce the amount of overfeed in its process, translating into significant cost reductions.

Bryce Neal and Jack Kingsley of Evans Adhesive rounded-off the technical presentation part of the conference with an informative presentation on the development of mould- and mildew-resistant glues, as well as on the advantages of the use of pre-mixed glues to the wallboard producer. The company developed its mould-resistant edge glue after attending the 4th Global Gypsum Conference, in Barcelona in 2003, and hearing there the concerns of the industry about the threat from mould and mildew.

Spouse Tours

A full spouse tour programme took place, including visits to both Prague and Carlstejn Castles, and attendance at the Gala Dinner. Around 30 spouses took part in the programme, and interestingly, we hear that useful business contacts are increasingly being made during the spouse tours, between delegate spouses.

Farewell Party

The conference farewell party took place in the heart of Prague, at the impressive Art-Deco Municipal Hall, and was kindly sponsored by BPB. Other sponsors at the conference included Handy Chemicals (briefcases), USG, Eurogypsum and Knauf. A number of awards were presented at the Farewell Party.

As is usual, voting for the best presentation award was normalised to the number of delegates present in each presentation. Bob Bruce was awarded the second prize for his excellent paper on the future of gypsum supply in the US. Steven Schwartz and his co-authors from the Lyondell Chemical Company won first prize for their impressive presentation on reducing water usage in wallboard. The prize for the best exhibition booth was awarded to Christer Olofsson of Limab.

As is traditional, delegates at the conference were asked to vote for their preferred location for the next Global Gypsum Conference. The conference organisers had already determined that it was time for the event to head back to North America, but delegates were given the choice between Vancouver, Toronto, Washington DC, New Orleans, Las Vegas or Cancun. Although Vancouver was a popular second-placed choice, Cancun was a very strong winner, with a clear majority of delegates choosing the popular Mexican resort.

Field Trip

A field trip to the plasterboard liner mill of Moritz J Weig GmbH & Co. KG, in Mayen, Germany, was held for gypsum producer delegates. Over 20 took the opportunity to fly to the plant, to tour the latest manufacturing line, and to see for themselves the results of Weig’s latest investment projects, before enjoying an evening of German hospitality at a classic hotel in the picturesque Eiffel region.

Next time...

Following the vote in Prague, the next Global Gypsum Conference will take place 8-9 May 2006, in Cancun, Mexico. Preparations for the event have already started, and we look forward to meeting you there!

Delegate comments on Global Gypsum Conference

'Certainly the most enjoyable and useful industry conference I've been to.'

'Great for making contacts and to hear about the latest innovations'

'I am pleased that such an event takes place - we deserve it!'

'Excellent!!'