Eagle Materials expanding Okla. wallboard plant
Eagle Materials Inc.'s subsidiary, American Gypsum Company, plans to expand and modernize its Duke, Oklahoma, gypsum wallboard plant, which the company says serves customers throughout the South and Sunbelt and is strategically located near decades' worth of low-cost natural gypsum reserves.
Upon completion, the project will increase the plant’s annual wallboard manufacturing capacity by 300 million square feet, or 25%, to approximately 1.5 billion square feet, and will eventually enable a further 500 million square feet of capacity expansion, for a total of 2.0 billion square feet of manufacturing capacity. The facility will be upgraded with state-of-the-art technology that will increase operating efficiencies, simplify maintenance programs, and reduce natural gas usage, resulting in manufacturing cost savings of almost 20%. according to the company.
The total project investment is estimated to be $330 million. Planning for the project has been completed, all regulatory approvals have been received, and construction is expected to begin immediately, with startup scheduled for the second half of calendar year 2027.
American Gypsum, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eagle Materials Inc., presently operates five gypsum wallboard plants and is the nation’s fifth largest producer of gypsum wallboard.
Eagle Materials, based in Dallas, Texas, recently named former Builders FirstSource CEO David Rush to its board of directors.
