2016 Surface Imports: Not Many an “A” at 3Q
By Emerson Schwartzkopf
If anyone’s asks about provding end-of-the-year comebacks, put in a good word for U.S. hard-surface imports.
Photo by Ana Ulin – CC BY-SA 2.0Barring a stunning go-ahead recovery at the finish line, tonnage for most of the sectors will likely be down, as numbers for this year’s third quarter indicate a performance that falls behind 2015 levels.
Granite, the main indicator, continues to lag, and marble now shows some weakness after nine months of imports. Quartz slabs continue to grow the market, although not as fast as 2015. And, if you feel a bit queasy, don’t ask about travertine.
Then again, 2016 certainly is the year of the unorthodox and the unexpected in the United States. Don’t count anything out until it’s over.
WORKED GRANITE
Imports of worked (sawn, one-side-polished) granite pieces took the biggest dunk, shrinking by 20% this July-September when compared to 2015. That’s a sharper drop than the 9.5% decline in this year’s second quarter. Ouch.
Some of the 100,000 metric-ton (MT) shortfall comes from a large one-time bump (35,000+ MT) in shipments from Canada in 3Q 2015 that didn’t happen again. China also came around with virtually the same amount of third-quarter shipments this year as in 2015; its 100,149 MT for 2016 bested the previous year by only 0.3%.
The biggest reason for the shortfall, though is that Brazil and India — #1 and #3 as far as countries supplying granite to the United States — shipped less. Brazil, the longtime leader in providing worked granite, shipped almost one-fifth less in 3Q 2016, and that difference is close to 50,000 MT.
Admittedly, Brazil had a lot going on in July through September, including economic and government instability (including the impeachment of its president) and, on the lighter side of distraction, the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian real seems to be picking up on international monetary markets at year’s end, which might lead to some better trends for 2017.
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WORKED MARBLE
Marble’s 13.6% slowdown in U.S. imports for this year’s third quarter remains somewhat of a puzzle, given the continued push for white kitchens throughout the year — but, as in this year’s second quarter, much of the decline comes from one country: Turkey.
This isn’t to pick on Turkey, as it’s had a large share of disruptions and reverses: a civil war across the border with Syria, a tense relationship with Russia, a real fight with ISIL and an abortive military coup. None of this adds up to business as usual, although a drop of more than 50% from 3Q 2015 is a large slice.
Italy occasionally suffers some trade doldrums, which hopefully is the case with its 15.3% drop in third-quarter marble shipments from last year. Luckily, China took up the slack — and them some — with more than 31,000 MT shipped to the United States in this year’s third quarter, increasing its output almost by half.
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QUARTZ SURFACES
Quartz surfaces continue to be the best-of-breed with U.S. hard-surface imports, fueled once again by an onslaught of Chinese-made slabs. The 11.3 million ft² from China in this year’s third quarter officially gives the country more than half of the share of quartz slabs coming into the country.
Among the major quartz-slab exporting countries, only two — Israel and Canada — show a decline in third-quarter shipments to the United States. The drop for both sources aren’t a reflection of lower demand; manufacturers based is both countries continue to ramp up U.S. factories and lower the need to ship from foreign plants.
The country that’s interesting to watch in 2016, though, is Vietnam. Steady growth now make it the fourth-largest exporter of quartz surfaces to the United States, with a realistic goal of passing Israel for third place in 2017.
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TRAVERTINE
The best thing that can be said about U.S. imports of travertine in July-September is that shipments from the #2 supplier, Mexico, fell by less than 2% from 3Q 2015. Yes, that’s really the best.
The less-than-comfortable truth is that Turkey, which ships more than two-thirds of travertine passing U.S. ports-of-entry, dropped its flow to the United States by more than half. Along with weak 3Q performances from Italy and China, overall travertine imports fell 49.2% from last year’s third quarter.
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