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00:35
K. SCHIPPER: Hi, I’m K. Schipper with another edition of Radio Stone Update.
In the great scheme of a national budget, it’s barely a drop in the bucket, but Australia announces it will include $6 million – or about $4.66 million U.S. – in fiscal year 2021 to study silicosis diagnosis and treatment among the country’s stone workers.
The announcement was made by that country’s Department of Health and follows more than two years of highly publicized cases of the lung disease appearing in fabricators working with engineered stone. The funding, which begins July 1, will be split among five university-level programs.
The largest award, $2.2 million, goes to the University of Queensland, where some of the funding will go to enhance working on whole-lung lavage, a process that utilizes saline to rinse out affected lungs. The process is being developed jointly by the university and The Prince Charles Hospital in Chermside, Australia.
Monash University in Melbourne will receive two separate awards, totaling $1.6 million. One will use data from affected workers to investigate new methods to determine disease severity and find better indicators of progression. The other seeks to identify risk of inflammation and improve the use and effectiveness of anti-inflammatory medication. The University of Sydney will use $1.5 million to build on a current project seeking to enhance silicosis diagnosis using artificial intelligence. And, the University of Tasmania will receive almost $650,000 to study the role of particle size in silicosis, and the types of engineered stone that produce the higher hazards for workers. All the figures are in Australian dollars.
2:21
The Natural Stone Institute is now responsible for the NSI/NSC 373 Sustainable Production of Natural Stone Standard. The Natural Stone Council officially transferred the ownership of ANSI/NSC to the institute last month.
NSC Executive Director Duke Pointer says the Natural Stone Council is proud to hand off the Sustainability Standard for Natural Stone, ANSI.NSC 373 to the Natural Stone Institute. The NSC saw the need more than 10 years ago for development of such an industry standard and it committed the resources to complete and launch one. The NSC expects the Natural Stone Institute to take the standard to the next level.
First issued in 2014, the Natural Stone Sustainability Standard establishes criteria and methods for tracking, measuring and improving sustainability in the production of natural stone. Since its initial development, NSF International has served as the program operator and auditor for the standard, and the Natural Stone Institute has contracted with NSF International to continue supporting the implementation of the standard for the next three years. Suzan Somo, environmental products business lead at NSF International says that organization is looking forward to working with the Natural Stone Institute to continue supporting the implementation of the stone standard.
The next step in the transfer process will be to re-engage the joint committee that maintains the standard, and is made up of stakeholders including academia, designers and specifiers, building owners, stone producers and related industry and sustainability experts.
The institute has also been working with industry stakeholders to identify sustainability goals and strategies. Michael Picco, 2021 institute board president, says it has been working with the Natural Stone Council prior to and during the transition to identify ways to build relevance and awareness of both the Sustainability Standard and the concept of using natural stone to satisfy green building goals. To learn more about the standard and join the new mailing list, visit www.naturalstatoneinstitute.org/sustainability.
4:49
EMERSON SCHWARTZKOPF: This is Emerson Schwartzkopf. Is it glass, or is it quartz? A Texas hard-surface importer faces interim measures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection over possible evasion of the stiff tariffs on quartz-surface products from China.
The federal agency will continue an investigation of allegations made last December by U.S. producer Cambria Company LLC against Houston-based Vivaldi Commercial LLC and Vivaldi Interiors LLC concerning crushed-glass slabs that actually fall under the quartz-surface tariff ruling.
The investigation involves material that substitutes fine-grained, silica-based glass powder for quartz sand in manufacturing hard-surface products. The U.S. International Trade Commission agreed in June 2019 to place the glass-based materials, with exceptions for slabs with large pieces of crushed recycled glass, under its order to assess duties of up to at least 293% on China-made quartz surfaces.
Customs will continue its investigation during the next seven months to determine if further actions are required.
5:55
K. SCHIPPER: First quarter revenue for Caesarstone Ltd. Produced a record level for the company, and a key 2020 acquisition in the United States helped. The publicly traded Israeli surfacing company reported $146 million in revenues during the first three months of 2021, up 15.6 percent from the same time last year.
Yuval Dagim, Caesarstone CEO, says the company is extremely pleased to report another quarter of growth. He notes that two acquisitions in the second half of 2020, helped contribute to those results. They are the purchase of India-based large porcelain-panel maker Lioli Ceramica, and hard-surfaces distributor Omicron Granite and Tile. Omicron’s purchase was especially advantageous as the company recorded $70.8 million in revenue from U.S. operations during the first quarter of 2021, up 17.9 percent from 2020.
In response to analysts’ questions, Dagim revealed that organic revenue – in other words sales coming from Caesarstone’s continuing operations – actually declined by 7 percent. All U.S. operations are in line to perform well for the remainder of 2021, and the company’s board of directors declared a cash dividend of 21 cents per share for the year’s first quarter. Company officials believe pandemic-related business restrictions will fade and the supply environment will improve as the year progresses.
07:24
And, when Coverings convenes July 7 in Orlando, Fla., attendees will find a lineup of informative sessions including Continuing Education Units. The education sessions are being offered in three areas: Installation and Fabrication; Workforce and Profits; and Materials and Trends.
The Installation and Fabrication sessions include a “Fabricator Forum Breakout Session,” “State of the Stone Industry” presentation, “Trials and Tribulations of Tile Installations: A North American Perspective” and “Tile Talks with the National Tile Contractors Association.” The Workforce and Profits sessions include “Managing a Family Business” and “Hard Surface Industry Town Hall.” Materials and Trends sessions include “Global Tile Trends” and “Environmental Responsibility, Human Wellness, Resilience – Hot Topics in Green Building and How the Tile Industry Fits.”
For a complete list of educational sessions and to register for Coverings 2021, go to www.coverings.com. Coverings will run July 7-9 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.
In other news from around the industry….
08:42
Vincent S.R.L., a tooling company with a long history providing for the hard-surfaces industry, will now operate as an independent company. It split from the corporate ownership of Austrian-based tooling giant Tyrolit last month. Vincent, which joined Tyrolit in 1994 offering industrial abrasives for processing of hard surfaces will continue to serve its customers in Europe, North and South America as before, but with a new logo “Tools for Quartz Industries.” It is headquartered in Thiene, northeast of Verona, Italy.
09:19
Caesarstone introduces a new continuing education unit course addressing outdoor living areas and the use of quartz surfaces. Entitled: “Responding to the Increased Demand for Outdoor Living Spaces with Innovative Outdoor Quartz Surfaces,” the course is being offered through Hanley Wood University and focuses on why outdoor living spaces have become more popular over the past decade and explores different design considerations for outdoor living spaces while showing how quartz can be used. For more information, go to www.hanleywooduniversity.com/course/7319
10:01
The “Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports” notes that researchers working on a second century A.D. Roman villa on the west coast of Turkey used 3D modeling software to examine Cipollino Verde marble cladding used in the structure. Working from saw marks, they were able to infer than 54 slabs, each measuring about 1.3 square meters, had been used to decorate the villa, and that the slabs had been cut in a water-powered sawmill, with 40 of them coming from a single block, then installed in book-matched pairs.
For the latest in industry news, you can also visit our online newsletter, Slab and Sheet, which is available on alternate Wednesdays. The May/June edition of Stone Update magazine is now available at www.magazine.stonemag.com. And for notes on this episode and a full transcript go to www.radiostoneupdate.com.
I’m K. Schipper for Radio Stone Update and we’ll see you here again soon.
