April constructsteel newsletter

President Joe Biden provided long-awaited details for a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that touches on everything from airports to highways, clean drinking water to revamped electric grids, school construction to public transit and clean energy to bolstered broadband deployment. The plan carves out $621 billion for transportation infrastructure; $689 billion for buildings and utilities; and $500 billion for worker training, research and development and domestic manufacturing initiatives.

India Ratings and Research (IndRa) revised its outlook for the construction sector outlook to improving in the next financial year (FY2021-22) from negative in FY21. Increased focus on infrastructure spending in the recently announced Budget for FY22 where healthcare, water, roads, and railways have seen strong allocations will result in higher order inflows to the sector. Sector revenue is expected to grow by 15 to 20 per cent year-on-year in FY22.

Investment in real estate in China jumped 38.3 percent year-on year in the first two months of 2021, reaching $215.2 billion. Investments in residential was up 42 percent, accounting for 75 percent of total investments in real estate. Link In the meantime, new home prices rose 4.3 percent in February from a low base last year, after a 3.9 percent increase in January, recording the fastest increase over the last five months. An extended surge in home prices in recent months has raised concerns about speculative asset bubbles, prompting tighter regulations to close loopholes in home transactions and contain illegal fund-flows into the sector.

New planning rules making it easier to convert commercial premises into homes has come into force in the UK. A new fast track for extending public service buildings has also been introduced to allow for bigger extensions to existing public buildings including schools, colleges, universities, and hospitals. Unused commercial buildings can now become homes through a simpler ‘prior approval’ process instead of a full planning application while public buildings will be expanded more quickly through the planning system.

In order to tackle poor productivity in its fragmented construction industry, the government of Singapore will require companies throughout the supply chain to band together in “alliances”, and to come up with joint business plans lasting at least three years showing how these alliances will raise their productivity with offsite manufacturing and digitalisation.

State-owned Abu Dhabi Airports Company to has decided to pull contractors’ performance guarantees for the Midfield terminal building project at Abu Dhabi International airport, which highlights that the UAE’s construction sector is now in a full-blown crisis. There has been a growing trend of international contractors exiting the market over the last years after sustaining financial losses, and several regional heavyweights have teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, with Dubai-listed Arabtec Holding being the most high-profile contractor to be affected recently

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics price index of materials and components for construction was up 1.4 percent in February, seasonally adjusted. The index was 8.0 percent higher than its year-earlier level, several materials, especially lumber and plywood, seeing double digit price increases for the year.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, the elevated price of lumber is adding approximately $24,000 to the price of a new home.

The construction materials shortage has not prevented UK construction returning to growth, but amid Brexit delays and ongoing shortages, selfbuilders, renovators and DIYers are still being warned that delays and disruption to projects are likely. The Builders Merchants Federation expects average construction materials prices to increase 5-10% this year, and the recent Federation of Master Builders State of Trade Survey showed 87% of builders had reported rising costs.

Saudi Aramco and the American Concrete Institute (ACI) will launch the Centre of Excellence for Non-metallic Building Materials (NEx), to develop and promote the use of non-metallic materials in the construction sector. The centre will be based at the ACI world headquarters in the United States. The centre will leverage ACI’s role as an authority and resource for the development, dissemination, and adoption of consensus-based standards for concrete design, construction, and
materials.

Worn-out wind turbine blades destined for the incinerator will instead be used to create carbon-friendly reinforced concrete on Britain’s new high-speed rail network. The project will swap steel rebar, traditionally used to reinforce concrete, with sections of glass fibre reinforced polymer turbine blades that have reached the end of their operational lives generating low carbon electricity.

America’s first 3D-printed homes-for-sale have been put on the market in Austin, Texas. They were developed by Kansas City real estate company 3Strands, designed by Logan Architecture and built using the Vulcan technology pioneered by local 3D printing specialist Icon.

French construction and concessions giant Vinci has agreed to acquire the energy business of ACS, Spain’s largest contractor. Vinci will pay approximately €4.9 billion for the business, which will include most of the contracting business of ACS Industrial Services, including its current EPC projects, which are largely in the energy sector. Within the scope of the acquisition, Vinci will take over an identified potential 15GW of renewables projects, primarily in the form of solar parks and both onshore and offshore wind farms.

Bentley Systems has entered into an agreement with investors led by Accel-KKR to acquire 3D Modelling company Seequent for US$900 in cash plus shares. New Zealand-based Seequent is a leader in software for construction sector players geological and geophysical modelling, geotechnical stability, and cloud services for geodata management, visibility, and collaboration. The company serve the world’s top mining companies, geologists, hydrogeologists, geophysicists, geotechnical engineers, and civil engineers in over 100 countries.

Building materials giant CRH is prepared to spend big on acquisitions and return more cash to shareholders this year. Company’s overall sales dipped 2% to $27.6 billion in 2019, but its profit after tax rose by 18% to $2 billion. Both Americas and Europe Materials division saw  decline in sales, while Building Products division was boosted by strong residential repair, maintenance and improvement activity in North America, offsetting lower activity levels in non-residential markets.

A new partnership has been formed to help decarbonise the UK’s construction industry using hydrogen. Hydrogen power generation solutions firm AFC Energy and construction firm Mace Group will co-deploy zero-emission hydrogen generators to decarbonise construction sites both in and outside the UK. The aim is to get rid of the sector’s reliance on polluting diesel generators. AFC Energy and Mace will commission their first AFC Energy H-Power hydrogen systems on site in early 2022.

Japanese electronics company Panasonic has announced plans to enter Thailand’s modular construction housing market, citing the growing demand for detached properties in urban areas. Together with Thailand’s Steel International, Panasonic has opened an “Experience Centre” – a two-storey model home showcasing its technology. Panasonic will start offering homes that contain inbuilt appliances, such as air purification devices, at the beginning of this fiscal year.

Bouygues Construction Matériel (BCM) is to install sensors on more than 20,000 pieces of equipment, in an IoT (Internet of Things) project that aims to equip the units with real-time remote management and optimisation capabilities. The platform enables the digital management of an entire fleet and can calculate performance indicators, equipment turnover and utilisation rates. Fleet managers can also inventory the equipment by technical base, worksite or number of billable days.