Additional one million square meters available for distribution by merchants from July.

Given the interest in the availability of plasterboard in the market, Winstone Wallboards explains how they are assisting builders to get access to supply. Through a series of measures, many of which have been in train for months, we have advised our merchant customers that additional product will be available for them to distribute from July. This equates to an additional one million square metres of plasterboard in the market through the July to September period and a 7% to 8% increase of various types of plasterboard.

Fletcher Building chief executive Ross Taylor says: “The current plasterboard supply constraints are being driven by the record levels of building activity. We understand the issues impacting the industry and, given our unique role as one of New Zealand’s remaining large-scale manufacturers, we have been, and will continue to do, everything possible across all our operations to alleviate the situation.

“The increases we will be bringing to market are possible because we will soon commission changes to the configuration of our manufacturing that we have been working on over the past three months which will produce extra, locally produced, volumes. We have also been able to secure and will import additional board from an Australian manufacturer that we can feed into our supply chain.

“With these measures, we have increased our committed volumes from 1 July into our merchant customers. It’s reasonable to expect that building merchants will sell their extra volume to the builders who both can use it immediately and who need it the most.

“More broadly, the allocation model we have introduced is beginning to make positive inroads with supply. We are also on track to open our new state-of-the art manufacturing facility in Tauriko, Tauranga next year. Construction began in 2020 and the new plant will increase our production output by 50%, providing the long - term capacity to more than meet current plasterboard demand levels.

“There’s no doubt that the building and construction industry is doing it tough, given the current market conditions and we empathise with all our customers who are being impacted.  We are committed to continuing to support and grow our industry and are investing significantly in its future.”