StatWatch: U.S. Stone Imports, March 2012

In March, granite continues a nice growth pace in 2012 while marble and travertine have an off month. The odd-lot category of “other stone” shows good signs of recovery.

StatWatch is a snapshot of U.S. dimensional-stone imports, offering a summary and exclusive Stone Update analysis of data from the U.S. International Trade Commission. Comparisons are made mainly on an annual level to gauge market trends. Analysis is made on import figures of the latest month available.

All figures give are for March 2012 (change from March 2011 amounts in parentheses). “Worked” stone is material that’s shorn from boulders and blocks, and then cut in standard dimensional measures (such as slabs and tiles) and polished (at least once, one side). “Value” represents the declared customs value of stone.
 
WORKED GRANITE VALUE
Total: $75.1 million (+13.0%)
Sector leader: Brazil @ $36.4 million (+14.6%)

Backfill: More of the same in 2012, as three of granite’s Big Four keep growing, with India at $12.1 million (up 12.5%) and China coming in at $12.0 million (up 25.9%). Italy continues to shuffle down; March’s $8.5 million is the best month so far this year, but it’s 4.6% behind the same time last year.

WORKED GRANITE VOLUME
Total: 85,086 metric tons (+10.9%)
Sector leader: Brazil @ 41,543 metric tons (+7.3%)

Backfill: Dimensional granite keeps picking up; China ships 17,260 metric tons, up 48.7% from the previous March. India scores a modest 2.4% gain with 14,088 metric tons. And, as with granite value, Italy scores its best month with 5,544 metric tons, but falls 7.1% behind last March’s tonnage.

WORKED MARBLE VALUE
Total: $16.2 million (+11.6%)
Sector leader: Italy @ $8.6 million (+17.0%)

Backfill: The overall totals look great, but it’s all the work of sector leader Italy. The four other countries shipping more than $1 million in March all showed value downturns from last year; China slips the worst ($1.8 million, down 9.7%), with Spain ($1.7 million, down 5.4%) and Turkey ($1.4 million, down 2.9%) also losing ground.

WORKED MARBLE VOLUME
Total: 13,176 metric tons (-9.4%)
Sector leader: Italy @ 4,758 metric tons (-22.6%)

Backfill: Marble tonnage finally hits an off month, with the only March-to-March coming from second place China (2,661 metric tons, up 7.6%). Turkey takes a 19.6% tumble to 1,494 metric tons, and Spain’s 1,928 metric tons represents a 17.4% loss. Greece’s unrest doesn’t seem to be spreading to its stone factories; while the 429 metric tons shipped fails to rank with the sector leaders, it still marks a 94.1% gain from March 2011.

TRAVERTINE VALUE
Total: $21.9 million (-0.1%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ $15.0 million (+0.8%)

Backfill: Growth goes for the pause button in March, mainly due to a 18.3% drop from Mexico with its $3.6 million of import value. From farther back, third-place Italy bucks up the market with its $1.5 million showing a 74.1% increase. Peru, meanwhile, loiters at $798K, down a single percentage point from March 2011.

TRAVERTINE VOLUME
Total: 36,892 metric tons (-4.0%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ 30,349 metric tons (+3.8%)

Backfill: A good showing from sector maker Turkey isn’t enough to put tonnage in the positive for March. The problem is with the usual second- and third-place shippers of Mexico and Turkey; Mexico’s 4,098 metric tons is a 28.4 decline from March 2011, while China falls to fifth place with 360 metric tons … and that’s 74.9% below last year’s level. Italy can’t make up the difference with its 44.9% annual gain to 897 metric tons.

OTHER CALCAREOUS VALUE
Total: $7.1 million (-7.0%)
Sector leader: Italy @ $1.7 million (+66.5%)

Backfill: Israel matches Italy’s stunning growth in import values, although its 66.5% gain only adds up to $531K. It’s a down month overall, with six of the top 10 exporters to the United States showing value losses. The big overall drops come from Portugal ($924K, down 14.2%) and China (673K, down 11.8%).

OTHER CALCAREOUS VOLUME
Total: 28,960 metric tons (+82.4%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ 21,750 metric tons (+3,303.8%)

Backfill: Shades of Lebanon and its meteoric rise and fall in this sector; Turkey’s tonnage growth comes as it shows an actual value of $422K (and that’s down 27.7% from March 2011). If the massive one-month bump is factored out, other calcareous shipments would be half of last March’s totals, despite the best efforts this year of Italy (1,704 metric tons, up 160.9%).

SLATE VALUE
Total: $3.4 million (-12.5%)
Sector leader: India @ $2.3 million (-35.4%)

Backfill: When a country slows its export flow by more than a third, and still remains the sector leader, it could be disastrous for stone supply. However, other slate shippers show good gains, such as China ($1.2 million, up 46%) and Brazil ($421K, up 25.1%). The big nosedive continues to be the United Kingdom; the $49K in slate sent in March is an 86% drop from 2011.

OTHER STONE VALUE
Total: $15.1 million (+23.3%)
Sector leader: India @ $5.3 million (+16.4%)

Backfill: The potpourri segment of U.S. stone imports finds new health in 2012, with strong performances from leaders like second-place Brazil ($4.1 million, up 85.9%) and third-place Canada ($2.2 million, up 116.3%). Other million dollar shippers include China ($1.1 million, up 5.3%) and Italy ($1.1 million, up 16.1%).

OTHER STONE VOLUME
Total: 16,670 metric tons (+11.8%)
Sector leader: India @ 6,838 metric tons (+22.2%)

Backfill: Shipments continue to pick up for this omnibus category, with Brazil jumping up 43.4% from March 2011 with 4,112 metric tons. China (1,885 metric tons) and Canada (1,816 metric tons) vie hard for third-place, although the Canadians pick up more ground by increasing U.S. exports by 112.9% from last year.

Looking for more monthly reports on U.S. stone imports? Check the StatWatch index here.

Get all the latest in the industry with The EDGE, the e-newsletter from Stone Update. Free subscriptions are available here.