StatWatch: U.S. Stone Imports, June 2011
TRAVERTINE VALUE
Total: $24.6 million (2.5%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ $16.5 million (5.8%)
Backfill: Travertine continues its slow-and-sure climb, fueled by Turkey’s steady push in the market. Mexico’s $4.6 million (up 6.6% from June 2010) also offers a helping hand. It’s a different story with Italy; the $1.1 million this June is a 26.3% drop from the year before.
TRAVERTINE VOLUME
Total: 41,109 metric tons (-31.4%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ 32,539 metric tons (-28.8%)
Backfill: June is a month where the numbers offer a biased picture; nearly all major travertine-exporting counties had unusually high June 2010 totals that make this June’s shipments look plain bad. Looking only at 2011 numbers, this June offers the second-best month of the year for most, and the best for Peru at 1,027 metric tons. The only drag this year is China; it showed a high in February at 1,662 metric tons, but dropped all the way to 963 metric tons in June.
OTHER CALCAREOUS VALUE
Total: $7.4 million (-3.5%)
Sector leader: China @ $1.2 million (23.3%)
Backfill: With Lebanon’s wild output finally out of the picture, things return to something close to normal; China’s good gains from June 2010 are offset by Italy ($1 million, down 10.9%) and Portugal ($853,022, down 6.8%). Other major exporters to the United States moved up or down by less than 4%, except for France’s bounceback ($580,513, up 100.1%).
OTHER CALCAREOUS VOLUME
Total: 9,899 metric tons (5.2%)
Sector leader: Mexico @ 2,666 metric tons (542.4%)
Backfill: Removing Lebanon’s sky-high tonnage from the mix – it dropped out of the market in May 2010 – gives this category something it hasn’t seen in a year: a gain. Unfortunately, it’s due to abnormally mammoth shipments from Mexico; other major countries show a loss from last June, save China (1,456 metric tons, up 44.3%).
SLATE VALUE
Total: $4.8 million (3.2%)
Sector leader: China @ $2.1 million (8.9%)
Backfill: It’s all good news here; second-place India also shows an increase of 3.7% from last year with its $1.9 million. Brazil lags far behind at $397,993 in third, but the total shows a 20.1% gain from June 2010.
OTHER STONE VALUE
Total: $17.3 million (-23.3%)
Sector leader: India @ $5.4 million (-22.8%)
Backfill: The struggle continues for this catchall of stone imports, although June’s totals represent the best performance since last September. Second place Brazil continues a long, deep slide from last year ($4.2 million, down 39%) and China wobbles ($2 million, down 14.9%). Canada steps up slightly ($2 million, up 3.5%) and Italy gets a small 3.4% gain at $1.5 million.
OTHER STONE VOLUME
Total: 20,151 metric tons (-31.6%)
Sector leader: India @ 6,447 metric tons (-23.5%)
Backfill: As with May 2011, no country shipping more than a thousand metric tons in this category offers any growth from the previous year. China gives the best of the worst at 3,061 metric tons, down 13.5%. Brazil’s 5,237 metric tons is a 43% drop from June 2010; Canada makes a 4.17% slip with 2,041 metric tons.
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