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Greener Building Codes Boost Wellpool's Sales of Calcium Silicate Boards

2015/05/12 | By Ken Liu

Wellpool Co., Ltd., reportedly Taiwan's biggest manufacturer of calcium-silicate boards (often referred to as drywall) held by the Goldsun Group of Taiwan, projects to ship up to one million boards in the second quarter, up from 900,000 boards it had delivered in the first quarter.

Industry executives say the company's production is running at full capacity mostly thanks to Taiwan's tighter regulations on eco-friendly building materials, to demand construction firms to increasingly adopt less eco-hazardous building materials, also projecting the company to post earnings to hit six-year high of NT$4.1 per share by the end of this year.

Wellpool shipped 3.76 million calcium-silicate boards throughout last year with earnings per share of around NT$4.

The company's executives say its business last year was unfazed by the island's slowing housing market simply because of thriving demand for drywall that is widely installed to cover ceiling and other surfaces as wall in skyscrapers, high-end hotels and other commercial premises.

Calcium-silicate boards, commonly used as a safe alternative to asbestos boards as insulation with high temperature resistance, now account for 85 percent of Wellpool's revenue, with the remainder generated by fiber cement boards and others.

Industry executive say calcium-silicate board has increasingly replaced wood and brick as covering of walls and ceilings in recent years at many public-work projects and private construction projects.

Over the past two years, the company has run two production lines with maximum output of 3.4 million calcium-silicate boards a year, and has added another 10 percent in capacity to handle robust demand.

Wellpool's calcium-silicate board technology has been licensed from the century-old English building-materials maker Cape Asbestos Co.