Stability North America; How much further to go?

Stability North America; How much further to go?

Introduced May 2006

This paper is a follow-up to one presented in 2002 following the precipitous drop in prices for gypsum board in 2000-2001 entitled “NA Gypsum – From Here to Stability”

The general format addressed the following questions:

Is the NA gypsum industry still unstable?
Why then? Why now?
What still needs to happen?
When is this likely?

The most important factors contributing to the cyclical nature of the industry that are discussed are:

Economic cycle, housing cycle
New FGD gypsum sources
Capacity shortages, surpluses
Market channel power
Asbestos
Basis for competition

Within the topic of competition an analysis is made of the progress made by the industry to compete on:

Quality
Service, product availability
Product mix, unique products
Size – market coverage
Price

Comment is also made on what needs to happen to have the industry become less cyclical and the likely timing.

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