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.

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.

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.

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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