Knauf is fueling the industrial renaissance at the Port of Fos-sur-Mer

The latest-generation plant reduces environmental impact

A brand-new plasterboard production facility has been inaugurated in the Fos-sur-Mer industrial port zone near Marseille. Officially opened on October 18, 2024 by Knauf France, by the end of 2025 the plant aims to employ 80 people and produce 30 million square meters of plasterboard. Knauf France’s €80 million investment in the eight-hectare site was recognised with the Invest in Provence award.

October 18, 2024 will go down in history as the day Knauf’s state-of-the-art factory in Fos-sur-Mer was officially inaugurated in the presence of 130 guests, including elected representatives, employees, clients, and the company’s management team. For Knauf, which is an international leader in the manufacture of construction and insulation materials, this is its 13 production unit in France and will supply plasterboard to the south of the country and cover a territory that reaches as far north as Lyon.

“We chose Fos because it is a multimodal transport hub. We wanted to adopt a sustainable, less carbon-intensive approach to supplying our customers in the Rhône-Alpes area,” says Christine Muscat, the CEO of Knauf France. The company will shift part of its traffic from roads to the Rhône River as it supplies home improvement stores and construction material outlets.

The installation of the German construction materials specialist in Fos-sur-Mer was supported by a range of agencies and companies. The France Travail employment office in Istres played a key role in recruiting local staff while TotalEnergies, which entered into a voluntary agreement in 2019 to encourage economic and social development in the Fos industrial zone, assisted in the training of teams.

Provence Promotion facilitated the integration of executives from Brazil and Belgium

“The local administration and regional and national government offices were aligned in their support. risingSUD put us in touch with the employment pool and Provence Promotion with TotalEnergies. Provence Promotion also made it easier for staff from outside the area to settle in,” explained Christine Muscat, who received the Invest in Provence award on behalf of Knauf France. She noted the process of relocating company employees to the South of France from Brazil and Belgium went very smoothly.

The mayor of Fos-sur-Mer, René Raimondi, said he was delighted to see increased activity in this part of the port zone. The port had not welcomed a new industrial production plant since the Lyondell Chimie France facility was built three decades ago. “Your business involves a large amount of port traffic, which is very important to me,” he emphasised. Gypsum, an essential raw material for the production of plasterboard, is transported by sea, so Knauf’s imports will contribute to the revival of the bulk shipping business at the Fos-sur-Mer port.

As part of the €80-million investment for this 20 000-square-meter industrial facility, the plant has been equipped with advanced machinery. After two years of construction, Knauf Plâtres Fos went into production on March 15, 2024, and is gradually ramping up to reach full capacity by the second half of 2025. It will eventually produce 150 types of plasterboard.

Over this same period, the number of employees will increase from 50 to 80. Jörg Kampmeyer, the General Partner of the Knauf Group, which has an annual turnover of €15.6 billion, emphasised the positive environmental impact of new production techniques that incorporate more recycled materials. The company’s objective is to adopt a plasterboard manufacturing process that uses up to 35% recycled gypsum that is derived from deconstruction.