Global Gypsum Newsletter

Issue: GGM77 / 27 August 2026

Headlines


Austria/Belgium: Austrotherm has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire Etex’s Ursa extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation business. The business consists of the Bondeno plant in Italy, the El Pla plant in Spain, the Queis plant Germany and the Saint-Avold plant in France.

Etex says that it will now ‘refocus its insulation business’ on glass wool insulation.


US: GMS has acquired fellow construction products distributor Evergreen Building Products. Evergreen Building Products’ product range includes exterior insulation and finish systems. This will become part of GMS’ exterior cladding offering. M&A Navigator News has reported that Evergreen Building Products operates four locations in Washington, serving commercial and residential customers across Washington, Idaho and Oregon.


Denmark: Rockwool recorded sales of €1.91bn in the first half of 2026, up by 5% year-on-year. The producer’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 2%, to €395m. It noted an increase in insulation sales volumes, bolstered by an increase in its market share in the flat roof construction segment and a narrowing of the price gap between its stone wool insulation and competing insulation types.

Rockwool has raised its full-year 2026 sales growth forecast from 3 – 6% to 5 – 7%. It now anticipates group investments for the year of €750m, up by 7% from €700m previously.


Ireland: Kingspan recorded sales of €4.86bn in the first half of 2026, up by 8% year-on-year. The group reported earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of €626m, up by 9%.

Group CEO Gene Murtagh said “Europe is generally stronger, the US is somewhat subdued save for the soaring tech sector, and Latin America is progressing well. Our order backlog is considerably higher than at the same point last year, and on that basis we can reasonably expect to break through €10bn in full-year revenues for the first time in 2026. We expect revenue growth will translate to a full-year operating profit of €1.13bn, an increase of 18% on 2025.”


Ireland: Kingspan has agreed to acquire electrical engineering firm BMC Manufacturing Group for €850m, comprising €600m in cash and €250m in new shares. BMC Manufacturing Group designs and produces low-voltage power distribution equipment for data centres at four plants in Dublin and County Meath, with a fifth planned somewhere in the US. Kingspan already supplies insulation and other construction products to data centres. The Irish Times newspaper has reported that the Kingspan expects to complete the acquisition by the end of 2026.


UK: Alternative insulation developer Wull Technologies, a joint venture of Vector Labs and Wool Insulation Wales, has obtained €87,700 in prize money, after commercial director Ruth-Marie Mackrodt was named among 61 winners at Innovate UK’s 10th Women in Innovation Awards for 2025/26. The funding will go towards scale-up, independent testing and product demonstrations of Wull Technologies’ LAMDA brand sheep wool insulation panels over the coming 12 months.

The grant follows a €351,000 investment from the Greater Manchester Advance Fund and the University of Manchester Innovation Factory in 2025. Mackrodt co-founded Wool Insulation Wales in 2022.


Croatia: Knauf Insulation has commissioned a new €120m, 60,000t/yr-capacity electric melting line for stone wool production at its Novi Marof insulation plant. The line is equipped with a submerged arc furnace and is capable of using up to 50% recycled raw material.

Technical director Leon Bustin said "This will add a selection of lower-embodied-carbon rock mineral wool products available to our customers, for applications such as flat roofs and sandwich panel boards."


Uzbekistan: Representatives of China-based Wonderful International Investment Group attended a meeting with the government of Toshkent region on 4 August 2026. Trend News has reported that the parties discussed the producer’s plans for an insulation panel plant in Nurafshon. Governor Zoyir Mirzayev reportedly laid out possible incentives and conditions for foreign investment in the region. Following the conclusion of the meeting, Mirzayev showed delegates potential sites for the eventual plant.


Tajikistan: An unspecified private company has produced its first batch of stone wool insulation at a newly-built plant in Tursunzoda, Central Government District. The plant uses locally-sourced basalt from the nearby Qaratogh Gorge mine as raw material. Its inauguration will coincide with the 35th anniversary of Tajik independence on 9 September 2026. Asia-Plus Daily News has reported that the plant is the first of its kind in Tajikistan.

Tajikistan more than doubled its second-half imports of stone wool in 2025, to 2500t, worth US$2m. China supplied 1700t (68%), while Kazakhstan supplied 515t (21%). Smaller volumes came from Belarus, Iran, Lithuania, Türkiye and the UAE.


Hungary: Masterplast recorded sales of €101m in the first half of 2026, up by 53% year-on-year. The producer partly attributed the growth to a 17% increase in sales of insulation. In Hungary, turnover more than doubled to €53.2m. The group turned a profit after tax of €5.2m, up from a loss of €4.6m in the first half of 2025.

The producer noted that existing inventories and a broad raw material supplier base protected its profitability against raw material price rises driven by the on-going Iran war.


Spain: Rockwool Peninsular plans to invest €60m to decarbonise production at its Caparroso stone wool insulation plant in Navarre by 2028. The upgrade centres on a €48.8m replacement of the plant's furnace with electric burners. It will receive €18m of Spanish government Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation funding. The project will reduce the plant's CO₂ emissions by 74%, to 13,300t CO₂-equivalent/yr. It also includes a hybrid wind and solar power plant expansion to generate 24GWh/yr for use at the plant. The Navarre government designated the project of ‘chartered region interest’ on 29 July 2026, approximately halving administrative procedural timeframes.


India: Sarda Energy & Minerals subsidiary Sarda Metals & Alloys approved a US$31.4m capital expenditure plan on 25 July 2026 to expand its Vizianagaram mineral wool plant in Andhra Pradesh. The investment will also cover the construction of a new waste heat recovery (WHR) plant at the plant.


UK: Flintshire County Council has approved an application for Knauf Insulation to remediate 17.7 hectares of land at Deeside Industrial Park in Flintshire, Wales. The company is awaiting permission to build its planned €212m Shotton stone wool insulation plant at the site on the English border, 20km from the Port of Liverpool on Merseyside. Local press has reported that the site formerly hosted a Tata Steel metallurgical complex and is now ‘mostly scrubland.’


Ireland: Kingspan has pledged €3m to the Innovate for Ireland doctoral research programme to support postgraduate research into increasing the sustainability of building materials. The Irish Times newspaper has reported the first beneficiary as materials scientist Abhishek Kaitheri Edathil. His work at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Westmeath, and Kingspan’s Ikon Innovation Centre in Kingscourt, Cavan, explores new avenues for polyurethane (PU) and polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation recycling. Edathil holds a master’s degree in Materials Science from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, West Bengal, and bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kochi, Kerala – both in India.

Kingspan head of innovation Sandra Del Bove said “By connecting research excellence with industry, we can help transform breakthrough ideas into practical applications with global impact.”


Europe: Rockwool Foundation Berlin has published new research into gender pay gaps in the EU, Reuters has reported. The study found that salary renegotiation accounts for 50% of gender pay gaps, with men more likely than women to use outside job offers to negotiate higher pay. The foundation concluded that the EU Pay Transparency Directive, enacted in June 2026 to mandate salary range disclosure and pay reporting, will not close gender pay gaps on its own.


Czech Republic: Rockwool Czech Republic recorded sales of US$92.5m in 2025, up by under 1% year-on-year. Operating costs rose by 6% year-on-year, to US$42.8m. This contributed to a net loss of US$1.27m, as against a net profit of US$2.31m in 2024. Exterior wall systems and technical insulation reportedly contributed notable sales growth, despite a general decline in industrial construction activity locally.

The producer attributed the loss to a scheduled six-week shutdown of its Bohumín stone wool insulation plant for the replacement of equipment in late 2025.


Croatia: Rockwool Adriatic is building a new, €13m briquetting unit at its Pićan stone wool insulation plant in Istria, SeeNews has reported. When fully operational in mid-late 2026, the unit will employ 10 people and serve the plant’s complete briquette requirements. Formerly, Istarska Ciglana supplied briquettes for use at the plant.

Plant manager Aleks Fonovic said that the unit will offer ‘greater quality control, increased flexibility and efficiency and a stronger focus on sustainability and circular production.”


Spain: Sika has launched Sikatherm Impact, an external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) for use in façade installations. Interempresas Construcción News has reported that the system reduces the installation process from ‘seven or eight’ to six stages, according to the producer.


South Korea: LX Hausys has won a lawsuit against fellow insulation producer Myungil Foam, Maeil Business News has reported. The ruling upholds an infringement injunction against Myungil Foam over LX Hausys’ phenolic foam insulation technology. The ruling dismisses Myungil Foam's final appeal over the injunction.


World: Market research institute Ceresana has published the sixth edition of its World Insulation Materials Report 2026, forecasting global insulation market growth to 660Mm³ by 2035. The report forecast that demand for polyurethane (PUR) and polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation will rise fastest, at a combined composite annual growth rate of 5.3%.

In 2025, mineral wool accounted for 50% of insulation consumption globally, followed by ‘sizeable’ minor shares of expanded polystyrene (EPS) and extruded polystyrene (XPS).

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