The Conflict Between The United States And Iran Has Put Pressure On The Quartz Stone Industry, Causing Double Costs.

Under the impact of the US-Iran geopolitical conflict, the quartz stone industry is facing the double challenges of rising shipping costs and raw material prices.
I. The US-Iran geopolitical conflict has led to a general cooling of the foreign trade market.
The Strait of Hormuz is a key shipping channel for China's quartz stone exports to the Middle East and Europe, and it is also a major global oil transportation route. Due to the tense situation in the US-Iran region, infrastructure and real estate projects in the Middle East have been suspended, and overseas purchase orders have significantly decreased. Domestic factories have accumulated finished products and increased inventory pressure. At the same time, the risk of the Persian Gulf route has intensified, with shipping companies raising war insurance fees significantly, and ships generally taking detours around the Cape of Good Hope. The shipping schedule has been prolonged, and logistics risks have soared. The market bargaining environment has continued to deteriorate, and enterprises have experienced rising logistics costs while being unable to raise prices, resulting in continuous compression of export profits.
II. Reasons for the sharp increase in shipping costs and their impact on the quartz stone industry
(1) Core reasons for the increase in shipping costs
The geopolitical conflict has pushed up international crude oil prices, significantly increasing the cost of ship fuel. Coupled with long-distance detours, fuel consumption has doubled. The avoidance of risks and congestion at ports has led to a shortage of effective shipping space, frequent overbooking and empty container dumping on routes. At the same time, multiple factors such as war insurance fees, additional fuel charges, and congestion additional charges have been added, and quartz stone, which is a heavy and large plate material, has seen particularly significant increases in single-container logistics and insurance costs, further pushing up the overall shipping costs.
(2) Direct impact on the industry
The proportion of shipping costs has significantly increased, and enterprises' export profits have shrunk severely. Small and medium-sized factories have difficulty absorbing costs, and after raising prices, their product competitiveness has declined, and orders have significantly decreased. The shipping period has extended from 30 days to over 45 days, and the construction projects in overseas regions have been delayed. Long-term customers have gradually shifted to competing production areas such as Turkey and India. The accumulation of goods in ports and the backlog of inventory have exacerbated the pressure on enterprises' capital turnover, and many small and medium-sized enterprises have been forced to reduce production and control output.
III. Reasons for the increase in raw material prices, and the continuous pressure on the industry's costs
(1) Core reasons for the increase in raw material prices
The core raw materials for quartz stone are resin, quartz sand, curing agent, color powder, etc. The US-Iran conflict has driven up oil prices, directly pushing up the prices of petroleum-based chemical auxiliary materials such as resin. At the same time, the photovoltaic and semiconductor industries have seized high-purity quartz sand resources, coupled with domestic environmental protection restrictions and the blockage of overseas mineral transportation, the supply and demand of quartz sand have been tight, and prices have continued to rise, with the cost of high-end patterned plates increasing even more. The tight circulation of raw materials and the hoarding by middlemen have further amplified the price increase.
(2) Changes in the industry's landscape
Under the pressure of costs, the industry has become more polarized: small and low-end factories reduce the content of quartz and add a large amount of calcium powder to reduce costs, resulting in plates that are prone to discoloration and cracking, with prominent quality risks; leading brands adhere to high-purity ratios and raise prices, creating a significant gap between high-end and low-end prices. The profits of high-end custom plates have been severely compressed, and the pace of new product research and development has slowed down. The increase in terminal selling prices has also led to the diversion of domestic residential and industrial construction demand, and some customers have turned to alternative materials such as rock panels and ceramic tiles.
IV. Industry response strategies
Enterprises need to optimize their overseas market layout, reduce reliance on the Middle East market, and expand to emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, Australia, etc. Long-term locking of high-quality raw material supply chains, pre-shipment preparation, and signing lock-price agreements to avoid fluctuations in raw materials. Adjust product structure, increase the proportion of high-value-added high-end plates to offset the costs of shipping and raw material price increases. Flexibly adjust foreign trade cooperation models, reasonably share logistics costs, and deeply focus on the domestic industrial and commercial markets to balance fluctuations in exports and stabilize production capacity.