There’s a Story, Part II

Last month, I noted how initial data on a study of possible radiation exposure when dry-cutting granite generated an information distribution of a summary, two analyses disputing the initial study and a war of wordage … but something just short of a story. At least, that’s how I felt.

Add a government spokesperson and some statistics, though, and apparently it’s all right for one of the nation’s newspaper chains.

Under the headline of “Granite countertop cutters at risk of deadly radiation exposure,” Scripps Howard News Service writer Isaac Wolf went over the same ground with most of the same sources (with the exception of the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors).

One new addition, though, is a comment from Diana Petterson, a spokesperson for the federal Department of Labor. Petterson noted that not much research had been done on the subject, “but,with the increasing residential use of granite countertops, more studies are underway.”

It’s probably a bit too cynical to note that the federal government seems to be taking notice of a market boom some two years after it stopped growing. Still, it’s good to hear from the Department of Labor on issues of stone fabrication and safety. Stone Business has tried, on several occasions in the past three years, to learn more about this, especially with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and we’re still waiting for a call back.

OSHA also figured in the Scripps Howard report. After a Marble Institute of America (MIA) spokesperson noted – well, contended, since that verb was used twice in dealing with the MIA – that stone shops were working to keep their air clean, Mr. Wolf wrote the following:

Federal figures tell a different story. Inspecting 133 of the nation’s 64,000 stone cutting facilities from October 2007 to September 2008, authorities from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – part of the U.S. Department of Labor – issued 185 citations for respiratory violations and 54 citations for air contaminants, according to OSHA data.

Frankly, using figures from October 2007 to September 2008 seemed a bit odd, until you find that it’s an annual government fiscal-year 2008 summary report. What Mr. Wolf didn’t note was that, with those 133 inspections, 72 shops (or 54 percent of the total) were cited for respiratory violations, and 28 (or 21 percent) got a write-up for air contaminants. That’s still way too many, but multiple violations at one shop can drive up the annual totals.

However, let’s move the bar a little closer, and take a detailed look at more-recent data – from September 1, 2008 to the end of this August. By the way, you can do this too by going here and entering the Standard Industrial Code (SIC) 3281 for “Cut Stone and Stone Products,” just in case you want to snoop on what OSHA finds at other shops.

Of the 199 OSHA visits to stone facilities, it found problems with respiratory protection 59 times, or 29.6 percent of all inspections. It wrote up 134 citations, of which 73 involved fines. OSHA found air-contamination problems during 15 inspections (7.5 percent of all visits), with 38 written citations and 10 fineable incidents. (And, only six of the inspections cited silica dust – the direct by-product of fabrication – as the air contaminant.)

The numbers from the last 12 months, from a safety standpoint, still need improvement. But all of them are far better than the conditions OSHA found in its fiscal 2008 year-end report.

And I didn’t miss that figure of the “64,000 stone-cutting facilities” … it’s a number that baffles me, too.

– Emerson Schwartzkopf

You can read up-to-the-minute news on the dimensional-stone trade and search the archives at Stone Business Online.

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You Got That WHERE?

Consider the origins of stone-care products at your local industry supplier – or the nearest Big Box home-furnishing stone – and you’ll get a quick tour of the worldwide stone industry. Mixed in with U.S. manufacturers are destinations as close as Canada and Mexico to more-exotic locations such as Turkey and China.

And, if there’s an incredibly enterprising importer out there, you can add one more country to the list: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) … or, as you’re going to likely know it, North Korea.

The country’s official news agency reported in June that scientists developed a stone cleaner/enhancer made from “natural materials;” the solution won’t harm the stone, and residue is non-polluting.) The agency also noted that, for those looking to dress up some concrete, there’s a new paint that provides the look of natural stone in five colors.)

Negotiating a business deal isn’t going to be an easy job, considering that exports from the DPRK come by fits and starts; on occasion, it doesn’t export directly to U.S. customers for a year at a time. (Don’t expect the DPRK’s official Website to offer a lot of help for starting up trade, although there is an official chamber of commerce.

However, as of last October, the country is off the “state supporters of terrorism” list, by order of former President George W. Bush. It’s OK to do business in Pyongyang, although you might be wary if anyone starts talking about payments through Office 39.

It’s unlikely that “Made in the DPRK” would appear on any of this stuff, as it might make a stone rejuvenator a bit of a tough sell at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Finding a different way to market by packaging the stuff somewhere else – Hong Kong, maybe – might do the trick. After all, it’s worked for the literally countless tons of stone with some genuinely strange import tags.

In the first six months of this year, for example, there’s been a regular flow of worked granite from the Dominican Republic. Admittedly, there are granite deposits in the country – the last mention I could find came from 1907 – but it’s a tougher sell to see major granite quarrying in Panama, Singapore or the United Arab Emirates, which all sent granite to U.S. ports-of-entry this year.

This is due to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule that determines the export “origin” by how much a product is worked, and it’s easy to believe that stone factories are running in Singapore or Dubai. (It’s a stretch to see major boulder-to-slab operations in the Cayman Islands, which sends along a few tons of granite every now and then.)

Then there’s the interesting case of Lebanon and the stone export category of other calcareous, which basically includes any calcareous stone that isn’t classified as marble or travertine. For years, the country sent, on average, less than 100 metric tons a month of other calcareous to the United States – until December 2006.

In October of that year, Lebanon exported 21 metric tons of the ol’ o.c. here. Two months later, it exported 28,224 metric tons to the United States. Since then, Lebanon has been the biggest volume exporter of other calcareous to us, often providing more than half the total shipments of the stone (although at a drastically reduced value when compare to other Mediterranean countries). It’s a great story, except that there are no strong clues as how it’s happened.

Most customers don’t particularly care where someone cuts stone from the ground; they want a nice-looking slab or tile. With more interest in the point of origin – on political or health issues – we may be in for some interesting IDs on products in the future, however.

– Emerson Schwartzkopf

You can read up-to-the-minute news on the dimensional-stone trade and search the archives at www.stonebusiness.net, where you can also find this blog at the top of the home page under the clever title of “Editor’s Blog.

The advertisements that appear on this page are placed by wordpress.com, and constitute no endorsement of the products or services. And I don’t get a dime from them, either.

StatWatch: Stone Imports, June 2009

Dimensional-stone imports remain in the doldrums, lagging far behind last year’s totals. The road to recovery may still be a few intersections away.

The following is taken from data collected by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission. All figures give are for June 2009 (change from June 2008 amounts in parentheses). “Worked” stone is material that’s been shorn from boulders and blocks, and then cut in standard dimensional measures (such as slabs and tiles) and polished.

Worked Granite Volume
Total: 114,099 metric tons (-33.42%)
Sector leader: Spain @ 36,074 metric tons (2,210.95%)
Backfill: Wow! Maybe there’s resurgence here, especially with a massive upturn in Spanish shipments to offset some poor summertime number from others, including China’s 62.84% drop from last June. Then again ….

Worked Granite Value
Total: $65.7 million (-37.29%)
Sector leader: Brazil @ $22.8 million (-34.79%)
Backfill: …the numbers don’t add up, as Spain’s supposed bonanza in tonnage is way out of sorts with the $1.1 million in value (25% off last June’s pace, by the way) recorded at U.S. ports-of-entry. Either there are some misreported numbers, or Spanish slab granite is going for a less-than-roadbed-pebbles $31 per metric ton. We’ll bet on the former.

Worked Marble Value
Total: $16.9 million (-35.35%)
Sector leader: Italy @ $7.4 million (-41.19%)
Backfill: Italy continues to improve from its bottom-scraping February total of $4.9 million, but it’s still far behind last year’s figures. China’s $3.5 million in June again showed the smallest decline (14%) from last year.

Worked Marble Volume
Total: 14,619 metric tons (-28.64%)
Sector leader: China @ 4,774 metric tons (-11.18%)
Backfill: Italy easily wins the race in value, but China is slugging it out, ton-by-ton, to be the leader in landing slabs and tiles on U.S. docks. Mid-year metric-ton totals show China (23,615) pulling away from Italia (21,564).

Travertine Value
Total: $21.7 million (-37.25%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ $13.6 million (-36.77%)
Backfill: China offered a bright spot with a small 4.9% gain from last June, but with less than $1 million of actual travertine. The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) small toehold in the market last year is giving way, with the $90,367 in travertine value showing a 61.64% decline from last year.

Travertine Volume
Total: 35,782 metric tons (-57.11%)
Sector leader: Turkey @ 25,481 metric tons (-62.26%)
Backfill: Turkey’s drastic drop in tonnage from 2008 levels is the main reason for the halving of travertine imports; Peru picked up its business by 17.84% from last June, but shipped only $2,015 tons. The UAE’s 163 metric tons registered a collapse of 94.26% from June 2008.

Other Calcereous Value
Total: $9.6 million (-45.10%)
Sector leader: Italy @ $1.7 million (-41.54%)
Backfill: The wild variances of the past 18 months seem to be flattening out; 2009 month-to-month declines are consistent, and Italy’s back in the top position. Lebanon’s mysterious big boom appears to be over; the $319,396 shipped to the United States this June shows a drop in value of 82.69% from the previous year.

Slate Value
Total: $5.0 million (-38.21%)
Sector leader: India @ $2.27 million (-25.86%)
Backfill: India turned up on top this month, beating China by close to $200,000 in import value. The difference between the two is larger than all of Canada’s $130,122 in slate shipped across the border, but good things come in smaller totals; that’s a 25.88% increase from June 2008 for our Neighbor to the North.

– Emerson Schwartzkopf

You can read up-to-the-minute news on the dimensional-stone trade and search the archives at Stone Business Online, where you can also find this blog at the Main Menu under the clever title of “Editor’s Blog.”

The advertisements that appear on this page are placed by wordpress.com, and constitute no endorsement of the products or services. And I don’t get a dime from them, either.