Mid-2008: New World Orders?

   January through June turned out to be a period like no other in the past decade, as the monthly reports seemed to defy trends with fluctuating volumes and values. Even the overlay of previous years’ data showed few, if any matches.
   That’s why, unlike last year, there won’t be any predictions about how the stone import markets will settle in December. The stone flow coming into the United States will likely be influenced by more than demand; there’s the world economy, wavering currency-exchange rates and the need for some exporting countries to keep moving exports at the expense of profit margins.
   That foggy weather is unlikely to worsen enough to cause people to go crashing into mountains – but it’ll make it tough to find and keep your bearings.

TOSS THE TRENDS
   Normally, after using some play on aviation terms, journalists often bring in the amusement-park analogy of a rollercoaster ride to describe the rise-and-fall in dynamic markets. However, while rollercoasters may provide some thrills, the rides smooth out at the end.
   Dimensional-stone imports for first-half 2008, though, look a lot more like a couple of turns at the Tilt-A-Whirl. The flow of stone seems to be moving with no clear sense of direction, and the end result leaves everyone a little woozy.
   Some of that unsteadiness will likely come from the barrage of numbers that follows. Yes, it’s tough to keep up with this, but the statistics also illustrate the uncertainty of where dimensional-stone imports – which make up at least 80 percent (and likely much more) of U.S. total use – are going for the rest of the year.
   Take the largest category: worked granite. The slabs and tiles coming into the United States from granite’s Big Four – Brazil, China, India and Italy – fueled the phenomenal growth of the U.S. dimensional-stone trade in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. While the growth cooled slightly in mid-decade, imports still grew by double-digit rates.
   First-half 2008 also shows some double-digit changes … but none are up.
   The customs value (and we’ll call this just value from now on) for worked granite for January-June this year totaled $603.59 million. That’s a decline of 13.93 percent from the same period last year.
   All of the Big Four fell behind first-half 2007, with Brazil dropping 18.41 percent with its $205.4 million to lead the sector. China placed second at $145.48 million, although its first-half values declined by only 4.17 percent from first-half 2007. Italy and India also saw mixed results, with first-half import values dropping by 16.08 percent and 8.08 percent, respectively.
   A drop of more than 14 percent in value of worked granite imports is disappointing, given stone’s past growth, but it’s not a disaster. When it comes to actual tonnage shipped to the United States, though, the numbers get bigger – and a bit stranger.
   The 914,388 metric tons of worked granite imported in the first half of 2008 marked a 21.77-percent drop from the same time period last year. China displaced former lead importer Brazil by shipping 297,432 metric tons, up 31.51 percent from last year’s first half. Brazil, meanwhile, went to 230,420 metric tons, a dive of 46.35 percent.
   India made a small gain this January-June (3.6 percent) from the same time in 2007 to be third overall in worked-granite imports. However, it’s India’s import data that’s a stellar example of 2008’s odd track.
   While the total of the first six months shows India gaining in a slumping stone-import year, the figures for the month of June – when compared to June 2007 – revealed that India’s U.S. worked-granite imports dropped by 21.33 percent. And the 15,798 metric tons shipped actually dropped India that month to fifth among worked-granite importers, displaced by a one-month surge by Taiwan (21,691 metric tons).
   What’s truly unsettling about the worked-granite data, however, comes with comparisons with the previous two years to chart the market. It’s possible that the best of 2008 may be far behind us.
   In 2006, the first-half total of worked-granite imports came to 1,206,975 metric tons; the year-end tally was 3,825,527 metric tons, so only 31.55 percent of total worked-granite imports arrived in January-June.
   Last year, the 1,168,778 metric tons of worked granite coming to the United States didn’t represent a massive drop from 2006’s half-year total. However, 2007’s final total of 2,253,320 metric tons meant that more than half of the worked-granite imports (51.86 percent) arrived before the end of June.