July constructsteel newsletter

At the recent G7 summit the governments involved announced a ‘Build Back Better’ (B3W) plan for infrastructure investment that appears to be positioned as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The plan would involve raising hundreds of billions in public and private money to help close a US$40 trillion infrastructure gap in needy countries by 2035. One of the key pillars of B3W is sustainability, with the investments to be made in a manner consistent with achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

President Biden has announced a deal on infrastructure spending – the plan, encompassing $973 billion of investment over five years and $1.2 trillion if continued over eight, includes nearly $600 billion in new spending and focuses on funding for roads, railways, bridges, water facilities and broadband internet. Biden’s original infrastructure proposal, released in March, had a price tag of more than $2 trillion.

The average value of construction disputes increased by 76% during 2020, a year that was dominated by Covid-19, according to a report from Arcadis. The report revealed that the average vale of construction disputes in 2020 was US$54.3 million, up from US$30.7 million in 2019, but that the average length of disputes continued to decline. Over 60% of survey respondents said their projects were impacted due to Covid-19.

The U.S. will need to add 330 million square feet of warehouse space dedicated to online fulfilment by 2025 in order to keep pace with the expected uptick in e-commerce sales over the same time period, according to CBRE. Vacancy rates for industrial real estate space have been low across the U.S. for months, while a significant amount of new construction will be needed in the next few years just to keep pace with robust demand. Globally, there will need to be an increase of 1.5 billion square feet to keep up with a $1.5 trillion uptick in e-commerce sales by 2025

Germany is poised to usurp the UK’s position as the leading country in Europe for BIM adoption. 70% of construction firms in Germany now use BIM, compared to 73% of construction companies in the UK. And German developers have already edged ahead, with 80% in the country using the tech compared to 73% in the UK. It has also been mandatory in Germany for all projects worth over €100m to use BIM since 2017

Major changes to New Zealand’s building laws have come into force to speed up the supply of housing. A new scheme for modular component manufacturers will allow offsite building manufacturers who meet certain requirements to be certified, allowing them to sign off their own designs and construction, which could significantly speed up the consenting process. Other law changes include a new requirement for manufacturers and importers to make information about building products and their uses publicly available. New Zealand’s government is also set to start inviting applications for a fund offering access to money to build the pipes and roads needed for housing schemes

Spanish house sales in April surpassed 2019 levels, official data showed on Tuesday, a sign the property market is not just recovering from last year’s slump but is hotter than before COVID-19 struck. Data from Spain’s College of Registrars, who underwrite real estate transactions, showed that April’s house sales were 3.1% higher than in 2019, and 91% higher than in the same period last year, a near-doubling of activity from Spain’s first full month under lockdown.

The pandemic has altered previously dominant trends in the Indian residential market. Notably, it has dented the overall new affordable housing supply share across the top 7 cities. Latest Anarock research indicates that out of the total new launches of approx. 36,260 units across the top 7 cities in Q2 2021, the affordable segment contributed a mere 20% share. The main southern cities of Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai together accounted for at least 72% of the total new premium supply.

One of the first 3D printed residential buildings in the US has recently been completed by Peri. According to the company, it is one of the first 3D-printed housing projects in the US that has fully and successfully passed all regulatory approval processes. The total printing time for the single storey detached house with approximately 160m² of living space is two weeks. According to current plans, the house will be ready for occupancy in August/September 2021.

UK Network Rail has developed a new footbridge design. The prototype fibre-reinforced polymer rail footbridge has been trial built at a test centre – the bridge can be installed in just days, and its modular design means it can be adapted to different locations. It also has built-in monitoring to assess usage and maintenance needs.

Construction industry executives across Europe have warned that “dangerous” price rises and shortages of many building materials risk undermining the EU’s flagship €800bn economic stimulus programme. Prices of construction materials from steel and wood to concrete and copper have begun to rise sharply in recent weeks as the economic rebound both in Europe and elsewhere — including the US and China — triggers a building boom. According to the European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC), bitumen prices have risen 15 per cent in only three months, cement prices were up 10 percent in a single month and wood prices were up over 20 per cent.

A new steel product for the construction sector has been launched by British Steel – with a lifespan of up to 120 years. Described as self-protecting, durable and attractive, weathering steel is ideal for a whole range of outdoor structures in exposed locations – including bridges, buildings, and catenary gantries on railway lines – used to suspend the cables providing the overhead electrification.

The China-based manufacturing enterprise Broad Group has managed to construct a 10-storey steel apartment building in just over a day. Constructed in the city of Changsha in China, the company used bolt-together modular units known as its “Living Building System”.

Italian Webuild (formerly Salini Impregilo) and its US subsidiary Lane Construction have signed the final agreement for a US$16bn project that will introduce Japanese bullet trains to the USA. The Texas high-speed railway is one of the single biggest infrastructure projects in the US in terms ofvalue and has faced a number of legal challenges, such as over acquiring land for the project. The project with private developer Texas Central Railroad will connect Dallas and Houston and reduce travel time from four hours to 90 minutes.

Blackstone Group, the private equity giant agreed to buy Home Partners of America Inc., a rental company that owns more than 17,000 houses. The company gives tenants the option of buying their rental at a predetermined price, making it unique among large single-family landlords. Blackstone’s acquisition comes at a time when remote work and school have whipped up demand for suburban homes, pricing would-be buyers into rentals and creating consumer appetite for new ways to purchase a house.

Warren Buffett is forging further into modular construction, leveraging the Berkshire Hathaway-owned MiTek engineered building products and construction software firm to launch a hybrid offsite-on site building model targeted at hospitality, health care, education and multifamily construction. Chesterfield, Missouri based MiTek announced a partnership with New York based, modular-focused Danny Forster & Architecture to ship sub-assembly components to jobsites, where contractors would follow simplified instructions and use the firm’s software to put them together.

Australia’s Boral will sell its North American building products business to a unit of NYSE-listed Westlake Chemical Corp for $2.15 billion. Boral’s shares rose as much as 4% to A$7.06, their highest since October 2018, after the building and construction materials supplier revealed its deal to sell the U.S.- based business in a disclosure responding to Seven’s bid. Boral had already asked shareholders to reject an off-market zero premium bid by Seven Group, a conglomerate controlled by Australian media owner Kerry Stokes, saying it undervalued the company.

Nucor Corp., the largest steel manufacturer in the US, is set to acquire an insulated metal panels (IMP) business from Cornerstone Building Brands in an all-cash transaction of $1 billion. The offer price implies 10x the pre-pandemic EBITDA, inclusive of expected synergies. The addition of IMP business complement Nucor’s growth plans and will bring a complete range of value-added solutions to customers from seven additional manufacturing facilities