Commodities Watch

Material: Gypsum

Highlights

  • Gypsum prices rose 1.8% in June compared to May, and 8.4% compared to February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index.
  • Gypsum extraction (mining of calcium sulfate) dropped 6% in April 2010, but was 8% higher than the previous April’s output, says the U.S. Geological Survey.
  • About 88% of domestic gypsum production is for wallboard and plaster products used primarily in construction.
  • Output of gypsum wallboard has fallen 47% since 2006, to 18,500 million square feet in 2009 (the last year reported by the USGS).
  • Synthetic gypsum accounts for 41% of total domestic supply.
  • Mexico provides 58% of the gypsum wallboard imported into the U.S.; imports from China (the world’s leading producer) have ceased though were only about 1% in 2004-06.
  • Approximately 4 million tons of gypsum waste is generated annually by manufacturing and building construction/demolition; it is increasingly recycled primarily into agricultural uses and new wallboard.

 

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Material: Cement

Highlights

  • Concrete prices have remained fairly stable through 2010, dropping less than 1% through June, and actually showing positive growth in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; however, prices are 2.1% less than they were the same time a year ago.
  • The U.S. produced 72 million tons of Portland cement and masonry cement in 2009, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, representing a 28% decline since 2005.
  • By the end of 2009, 14 cement manufacturing plants had closed, several were idled with full silos, and only three new plants had opened.
  • Plant-level reporting of carbon dioxide emissions from production became mandatory in 2010.
  • The U.S. is the third-largest producer of cement, representing 26% of the world’s total. China’s market share is 50%.

 

Quote:
"The use of byproducts [such as fly ash and blast furnace slag] in concrete diverts 15 million metric tons a year of such waste materials from landfills [and] reduces the CO2 embodied in concrete by as much as 70%."—from greenconcrete.info

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