StatWatch: Slow Crossings at the Equator?

January 27, 2016

By Emerson Schwartzkopf

Maybe there’s a toll-booth traffic jam in crossing the Equator. Or a lack of containers in South America. Or, to be honest, a slowdown on Brazil’s granite expressway to the United States.

U.S.-bound granite shipments from Brazil fell by almost half in November 2015 – and, since Brazil is the #1 U.S. supplier, overall granite-import data took a large (40%+) drop. Given all-too-painful memories of the Great Recession, those are number to make anyone queasy in the dimensional-surfaces trade.

Granite, however, seems to be a one-off, as other sectors showed late-year growth growth, as shown in the monthly exclusive Stone Update analysis of data from the U.S. International Trade Commission. And the big growth area of 2015 – quartz surfaces – keeps going full-throttle.

GRANITE

Any sharp move down in stone imports isn’t good news, and November 2015’s 41.1% drop in year-to-year shipments to the United States certainly isn’t in the Thanksgiving spirit. Most of the decline comes from economically challenged Brazil, with its 59,787 metric tons (MT) last November marking a change of -49% from the same time in 2014.

China, with its own economic turmoil, dropped 22.8% from the previous year to 32,842 MT in November 2015. Italy recorded a radical year-to-year drop of 76.2%, but a huge one-month-only increase 2014 skewed the comparison; in looking at 2015, Italy experienced its second-best month so far in November.

Brazil, however, hit its 2015 high in May with 93,672 MT … and, with the exception of one month (August), experienced regular declines during the prime building season.

WORKED GRANITE: U.S. IMPORTS
(metric tons)
	Nov-15	Nov-14	Change
TOTAL	132,388	225,732	-41.4%
Top Sources
Brazil	59,787	117,154	-49.0%
China	32,842	42,562	-22.8%
India	18,577	19,942	-6.8%
Italy	9,336	39,193	-76.2%
Canada	6,253	2,252	177.7%
Spain	4,316	3,012	43.3%
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission, Stone Update* analysis*

MARBLE

The two-country duel in 2015 for top U.S. importer looked to be over last November, as Italy regained a commanding top spot with 11,911 MT and a 15.3% increase from November 2014. Turkey dropped into a distant second in November 2015 with 6,513 MT – its weakest month of the year – although the total still topped November 2014 by 8.1%.

Other suppliers to the United States marked increases from the previous year, except for China (4,916 MT, down 16.3%). Overall, U.S. marble imports grew 10.7% to 32,496 MT.

WORKED MARBLE: U.S. IMPORTS
(metric tons)
	Nov-15	Nov-14	Change
TOTAL	32,496	29,033	10.7%
Top Sources
Italy	11,991	10,153	15.3%
Turkey	6,513	5,984	8.1%
China	4,916	5,706	-16.1%
India	2,961	1,862	37.1%
Spain	2,269	2462	-8.5%
Brazil	1,740	825	52.6%
Greece	907	833	8.2%
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission, Stone Update* analysis*

QUARTZ SLABS

The relation of the year-to-year fortunes of granite and quartz surfaces seemed to reflect Newton’s Third Law of motion; while the former went down by nearly half in November 2015, the latter rode a 54.1% boost.

China again provided the biggest move, with its 2 million ft² marking a 179.1% increase from November 2014. Other Asian producers in India and Vietnam also shipped more than 400,000 ft² and showed year-to-year growth of 263.8% and 53.7%, respectively.

The attention-grabber of months past, Israel, again showed a decline of 18.1% in November 2015 from the previous year. However, similar monthly decreases in the second half of 2015 may be more of an indication that Caesarstone may be importing less and augmenting supply with its Richmond Hill, Ga., plant, which officially opened in late spring.

QUARTZ SLAB: U.S. IMPORTS
(square feet)
	Nov-15	Nov-14	Change
TOTAL	6,083,476	3,834,521	58.7%
Sources
China	2,075,293	763,194	171.9%
Spain	1,277,439	1,061,838	20.3%
Israel	739,943	903,727	-18.1%
Canada	475,173	547,528	-13.2%
India	439,932	120,933	263.8%
Vietnam	428,361	278,613	53.7%
Turkey	171,910	0	N/A
Italy	167,519	103,786	61.4%
Korea	93,840	64,110	46.4%
Germany	90,761	22	—
Portugal	58,556	91,278	-35.8%
Czech Republic	58,157	7,879	638.1%
Brazil	37,114	19,676	88.6%
Hong Kong	12,508	0	N/A
Mexico	10,646	0	N/A
Oman	3,993	0	N/A
Romania	775	0	N/A
Belgium	0	23,229	N/A
Austria	0	108	N/A
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission, Stone Update* analysis*

TRAVERTINE

TRAVERTINE: U.S. IMPORTS
(metric tons)
	Nov-15	Nov-14	Change
TOTAL	61,005	46,072	32.4%
Top Sources
Turkey	54,760	39,966	37.0%
Mexico	3,688	3,701	-0.4%
China	792	686	15.5%
Italy	687	1,129	-39.1%
Peru	512	442	15.8%
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission, Stone Update analysis

OTHER CALCAREOUS

OTHER CALCAREOUS: U.S. IMPORTS
(metric tons)
	Nov-15	Nov-14	Change
TOTAL	17398	8912	95.2%
Top Sources
Canada	3588	454	690.3%
Italy	2803	1409	98.9%
Turkey	2275	737	208.7%
China	1777	2,102	-15.5%
Portugal	1432	1,073	33.5%
Spain	1403	837	67.6%
Israel	990	232	326.7%
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission, Stone Update* analysis*

OTHER STONE

OTHER STONE: U.S. IMPORTS
(metric tons)
	Nov-15	Nov-14	Change
TOTAL	28516	21334	33.7%
Top Sources
Brazil	12,378	7,561	63.7%
India	5,971	5,786	3.2%
China	4,778	3,165	51.0%
Canada	1,539	1,145	34.4%
Italy	1,375	1,281	7.3%
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission, Stone Update* analysis*

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