StatWatch: Granite Takes a Tumble
By Emerson Schwartzkopf
Nobody wants to remember this kind of September for U.S. stone imports. And, hopefully, they won’t have to try in the future.
Leaves barely started to fall on U.S. trees before worked granite imports took a 38% nosedive, due to a major slowdown with one country. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like a one-time trip-up.
Other surface sectors cooled shipments in September, but kept ahead of 2014’s pace. And, one number in the quartz-slab lineup is telling … although what it’s telling still isn’t clear.
GRANITE
Imports of “worked” (at least partially finished) granite totaled 151,112 metric tons (MT) in September 2015, creating a wrenching 38.4% drop from the same time a year ago. That’s also 20,000 metric tons lower than August 2015, throwing the annual import growth below 7% for this year.
What happened? Brazil – the biggest U.S. supplier of worked granite – shipped 80,098 MT in September, a 50% decline from 2014. The big drop isn’t endemic in the industry; the other two members of granite’s Big Three, China and India, posted modest volume growth of 5.2% and 2.3%, respectively.
Wild swings in import volumes can be one-time affairs, caused by non-occurring events such as bad sailing weather, dock strikes or ill-timed shipments. This isn’t Brazil’s case; this year, it’s been behind 2014 totals in five of the nine months reported so far. It’s sent 667,889 MT total in January-September, which is 16.7% than the first three quarters of 2014.
There’s no neat, all-encompassing answer on this, but the problem is less likely to be U.S. market demand and more in terms of Brazil’s economy which, to be blunt, is tanking. A blog at The Economist noted that Brazil’s gross domestic production (GDP) went flat in 2014 and could shrink 3% by the end of this year. Inflation may hit 10%, and the Brazilian real went from a value of US 40¢ a year ago to US 24¢ near the end of September.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MARBLE
Worked marble imports continued to ease off this September, moving well under the 40K level to 33,665 MT. Shipments are still outpacing 2014, with September’s totals stretching 15.7% more than last year’s.
Turkey, the market leader for much of the year, slowed down from its monthly highs of 15K to just over 9,400 MT in September. Italy regained the top spot among U.S. suppliers – but not by much – with 9,561 MT. China provided the rare decline in marble, with its 5,201 MT in September showing a 21% drop from last year.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
QUARTZ SLABS
September imports of quartz slabs kept up a brisk pace, with the 5.5 million ft² coming to U.S. ports-of entry marking a 61.8% year-to-year increase. The overall total is no longer a record; neither does China’s 2.1 million ft² in September count as a record for one country (although it’s the second-biggest monthly total, and China set the all-time record in August 2015).
The number where growing number of readers will fixate is Israel’s September 2015 shipments of 579,292 ft², representing a nearly 30% decline from the previous year. It’s a telling number, but it could be saying several things.
The notion that Caesarstone (Israel’s exporting quartz-surface manufacturer) hit a large sales decline is unlikely, given the growth shown by every other country shipping quartz surfaces to the United States. The lower numbers posted by Israel in September have a stronger basis in Caesarstone working off larger-than-normal inventories of slabs worldwide – as shown in financial reports – and the ramping-up of U.S. slab manufacturing at its new Richmond Hill, Ga., plant.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TRAVERTINE
Last month, travertine imports made a minor move down by 2.5% from 2014. September proved to be a mirror, with the 71,928 MT received representing a year-to-year increase of 2.8%.
As usual, the gain came as Turkey had a good month in September, with 64,058 MT (up 19.4% from 2014). The drastic year-to-year decline for Mexico (-63.3%) is due to a huge one-time increase in U.S. shipments in September 2014 that skews any comparison.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
OTHER CALCAREOUS
The topsy-turvy nature of other calcareous continued in September, as Canada became the new sheriff in town with 4,669 MT, marking a three-fold increase from September 2015. Italy, meanwhile, went off the import cliff, dropping 47.3% from a year ago … and going from 5,670 MT this August to only 682 MT a month later.
Spain provided the biggest year-to-year move, with its second-place 2,805 MT marking a 524.7% increase. China’s 2,760 MT, meanwhile, is 16.3% lower than September 2014, but less than 100 MT off August 2015 shipments.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
OTHER STONE
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
