StatWatch January 2019: Granite Moving Up
By Emerson Schwartzkopf
There’s a big surge of growth for the first month of the year in U.S. hard-surface imports … and, for the first time in several years, it’s not in Chinese quartz surfaces.
Granite shipments, after a weak 2018, started with a strong January. Brazil led the way as the sector beat last year’s start by one-third in volume.
Other natural-stone segments, meanwhile, showed hit-and-miss performance in sending slabs and tiles to the United States.
Quartz surfaces remained a interesting part of hard surfaces, with China’s shipments in January dropping by 96% from the same time last year. Other countries, however, picked up the slack, including a spectacular increase from India by more than 300%.
WORKED GRANITE
For worked (cut, one side polished) granite, January is a hopeful start in U.S. markets. The 135,757 metric tons hitting U.S. ports-of-entry is up 33% from a year ago – one of the strongest year-to-year rises for the stone in years.
Sector leader Brazil sparked most of the growth with a 40.7% increase in volume from last January. India, Spain and Italy also showed double-digit rises in tonnage; only China showed a decrease among top exporters to the United States.
Canada’s huge year-to-year growth rate (more than 1,000%) is due to the country bucking an annual trend of <1,000-metric-ton shipments every January. It’s also the first time Canada shipped more than 10,000 metric tons of worked granite across the border in one month since October 2016.
| U.S. Imports: Worked Granite | |||
| (metric tons) | |||
| 19-Jan | 18-Jan | Change | |
| TOTAL | 135,757 | 102,104 | 33.0% |
| Top Countries | |||
| Brazil | 69,364 | 49,299 | 40.7% |
| China | 25,750 | 29,605 | -13.0% |
| India | 19,118 | 14,543 | 31.5% |
| Canada | 10,974 | 907 | 1109.9% |
| Spain | 6,419 | 4,383 | 46.5% |
| Italy | 2,618 | 2,289 | 14.4% |
| Source: U.S. International Trade Commission, Stone Update analysis | |||
QUARTZ SURFACES
The final decision on U.S. unfair-trade tariffs concerning Chinese quartz surfaces is tentatively set for the first full week in June, but preliminary imposition of 300%-plus duties on the material all-but-stopped that country’s export flow. The 232,855 ft² of quartz slabs coming from China this January represented a 96.7% plunge from the 7 million sf² shipped in 2018’s first month.
China’s staggering drop lowered overall U.S. quartz-slab imports – but it certainly didn’t kill the total product flow. Total imports came to 7.6 million ft². showing a year-to-year decrease of, well, only 33.3%.
India surged as the one company looking to fill the gap left by China, chalking up a 363.4% jump from last year with this January’s 2.2 million ft². Other major movers include Spain (1.7 million ft², up 70%), Turkey (589,419 ft², up 86.7%) and Italy (349,181 ft², up 153.2%). Slighly less in volume, but way up in growth, are the Czech Republic (186,259, up 174.3%) and a booming Belgium (155,506 ft². up 3,389%).
Only one other country took a major tumble on U.S. quartz-slab imports in January: Israel, dropping 70.4% to 293,833 ft². The drop may be indication of Israeli manufacturer Caesarstone’s drive of making its Richmond Hill, Ga., factory more efficient in meeting North American market needs.
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WORKED MARBLE
January used to be a slow month for U.S. worked-marble imports. In the past five years, the push to the top of the tonnage charts – first by China, then by Turkey – made the start of the year unpredictable.
This year, imports are down slightly (4%) from January 2018, mainly due to slower shipments from China and Turkey. The largest importer by volume remains Turkey, but the 33.3% year-to-year drop puts less than 150 metric tons ahead of India (which showed a strong 28.8% gain from last year).
As at the start of 2018, five countries make up the bulk of worked-marble imports: Turkey, India, Italy, China and Brazil. Other countries lag far behind; while Brazil is fifth-largest in January with 3,604 metric tons, sixth-place Greece shipped only 815 metric tons. Spain came seventh at 643 metric tons, followed by Egypt at 255 metric tons.
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TRAVERTINE
The good news: Turkey is ramping up shipments of travertine to the United States. The bad news: Nearly everyone else is cutting back.
U.S. travertine imports edged up a nominal 2% this January from a year ago, with the 25,756 metric tons showing an annual gain of just 499 metric tons.
Turkey, with more than 80% of the U.S. travertine-import market, provided the bright spot for January, with its 21,196 metric tons showing a 15.9% year-to-year gain. Unfortunately, second-place Mexico dropped 38.8% from January 2018, with most of the other exporters to the United States showing double-digit losses. Spain jumped up 225.5% in January … but, with 309 metric tons, it’s not much of a share.
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