What Sets the Price of Egyptian Marble & Granite

The stone, and the grade within it

Two marbles out of the same mountain are not the same purchase. Galala Classic and Galala Extra come from one bed; Extra is the selected, lighter, more uniform part of it, and selecting is work somebody does block by block. Name the grade, or send a photograph of what you were shown, and that is what we quote.

Block, gangsaw slab, calibrated tile or cut-to-size

A block is sold by the cubic metre and leaves the rest of the work to you. Gangsaw slabs are sawn and finished but still random in size. Calibrated tiles are sawn, calibrated and squared to a fixed size. Cut-to-size is worked to your drawing, piece by piece. Each step is another machine pass and another yield loss on the one before.

Thickness

A thicker slab means fewer square metres out of the same block and fewer square metres inside the same container — the two things that carry most of the cost. It is also an engineering decision: treads, worktops and ventilated facades need what they need, so specify the thickness rather than shopping for the thinnest.

Finish

Polished, honed, brushed, antique, tumbled, sandblasted, flamed and bush-hammered are not variants of one surface. Each is its own line of machines and its own number of passes, and the heavier textures take material off the face. A flamed external paver and a polished interior floor in the same stone are two different products.

Size, squareness and edge work

A fixed size costs more to produce than a random one, because the offcut stays with us instead of with you. Tight tolerances, calibrated and squared edges, chamfers, polished or bullnosed edges, mitres and returns are each an operation. Tell us the tolerance the job needs: asking for more precision than the job needs is the commonest way to pay for nothing.

Quantity, and how full the container is

Freight is charged by the container, not by the square metre, so a half-filled container carries the cost of a full one. The most useful thing most buyers can do is fill the box — different stones, thicknesses and finishes travel together, and we plan the load for you.

How much fits in a 20 ft container

Packing

Slabs on steel A-frames with foam between polished faces; tiles crated in heat-treated timber, edge-protected, with the batch stencilled on the crate; blocks on hardwood dunnage in steel cradles. Heavier crating and export-grade timber cost more and are worth it: a crate that fails costs more than the crate.

Incoterm and destination port

FOB puts the stone on the vessel at Alexandria, Port Said or Sokhna and stops there. CIF adds the sea freight and the marine insurance to your port. Inland haulage at either end, and DAP to the site, are separate legs again. Two offers are only comparable on the same Incoterm and the same port — ask both suppliers for the same one.

The season, and whether that block is running

Natural stone is quarried, not manufactured. A grade can run well one month and be thin the next, and freight rates and sailing schedules move on their own. That is why a quotation carries a validity date, and why a re-order is priced again rather than copied.

Extra work on the piece

Kerfs and anchor slots for a ventilated facade, dowel and anchor holes, anti-slip grooves on treads, drainage cuts and drip grooves on sills, cut-outs for sinks and hobs: each is an operation on every piece, and on a long bill of quantities they weigh more than the material. Put them on the drawing.

The documents your market asks for

A certificate of origin, an Arab preference or EUR.1 certificate, fumigation and ISPM 15, a pre-shipment inspection, laboratory testing — each has a cost and a lead time. For the stone you select we arrange water absorption, flexural strength and abrasion tests at an accredited laboratory. Tell us the destination at quotation stage, so the paperwork is inside the price instead of a surprise after it.

Export, packing and documents

Why don't you publish a price list?

Because it would be wrong by the time you read it. A price moves with the block that is running, the grade you select, the thickness and the finish, how full the container is, the Incoterm and the port, and the freight rate that week. A published figure would be either one we could not honour or one high enough to be useless to you. We quote per project instead, usually within one working day.

Can you give me a rough idea on WhatsApp?

Send the stone, the finish, the thickness, the quantity and the port, and in the same conversation you get a real quotation rather than a rough idea — usually within one working day.

Does ordering more bring the rate down?

Up to a full container, yes, because the freight spreads over more material. Past that the saving is in the production run rather than the shipping: one stone, one thickness, one finish, cut in one go, is cheaper to make than the same quantity split into three specifications.

How is payment staged?

In three stages. 50 % in advance, on order, which releases the material into production. 30 % once production is finished and you have approved it — photographs of the actual slabs or the packed bundles. The final 20 % before the container ships. Nothing is loaded until you have seen and approved the stone you are paying for.