June constructsteel newsletter

Biden-Harris Administration Launches Initiative to Modernise Building Codes, Improve Climate Resilience, and Reduce Energy Costs. Modern building codes and standards provide a range of smart design and construction methods that save lives, reduce property damage, and lower utility bills—for example, by ensuring that roofs can withstand hurricane winds, that construction materials are resistant to flood damage, and that insulation keeps heating and cooling costs low.

The American Institute of Steel Construction has released the first-ever set of US recommendations for hybrid steel frames with mass timber floors. Design Guide 37: Hybrid Steel Frames with Wood Floors, written by Arup, encourages the use of mass timber floor systems in construction, “an underused yet important material to reduce the amount of carbon-intensive concrete in a structure”.

China’s investment in real estate development declined in April while property developers’ contract sales fell significantly as the country’s property markets were seriously affected by virus outbreaks and city lockdowns – investment in property development dropped 10.1% in April from a year ago. To encourage homebuyers to enter the markets, the People’s Bank of China announced a reduction in mortgage loan interest rates for first-time homebuyers.

The Brazilian infrastructure construction segment recorded strong growth in 2021 of 10.2% but growth will slow to 3.8% in 2022 due to rising prices of materials and their lack of availability, as well as elevated interest rates. Growth is expected to decline even further in 2023, to just 1.4% as the rising costs and lack of availability of materials causes significant delays and cost hikes.

Egypt has signed a US$4.45 billion deal for a highspeed electric rail line to link its Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts that contractor Siemens dubbed a “Suez Canal on rails”. The contract between Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels and a consortium including Siemens Mobility, Orascom Construction and Arab Contractors will cover design, installation and maintenance of the rail link over 15 years.

India’s property developers, which are among the biggest employers of both skilled and unskilled labour, are set to benefit from the Centre’s move to ensure cheaper supplies of steel and cement – the two biggest commodities used in construction. India’s economy grew 8.7% in FY22 against the National Statistical Office’s earlier estimate of 8.9%. During FY22, manufacturing and construction grew by 11.5% and 9.9%, respectively. While in Q422 manufacturing declined 0.2%, indicating the slight impact of Omicron variant induced lockdowns, construction also showed tepid growth of 2.0%.

Construction equipment sales for the world’s top 50 OEMs have hit record levels and were up 20.8% reaching US$232.7 billion as most markets in the world saw growth as the industry bounced back from the impact of the pandemic.

GE Renewable Energy has opened a new research and development facility in New York, US, to conduct further research on how to 3D print the concrete base of towers used in wind turbines. It will continue to work on optimising the 3D printing technology with the first applications in the field anticipated within the next five years. The research conducted at the facility is being supported in part by a US Department of Energy grant and will enable GE to print the bottom portion of the wind turbine towers on on-site wind farms.

Virginia-based engineering, construction and project management company Bechtel announced its new manufacturing and technology division, which will target sectors such as semiconductors, synthetic materials, data centres and electric vehicle products and facilities. Primary drivers for the creation of the division include digitisation, energy transition and reshoring for economic and security reasons.

Bentley Acceleration Initiatives, the internal incubator for strategic investments of Bentley Systems, the infrastructure engineering software company, announced the launch of ConstructHelix, a digital construction technology solutions group that caters to the unique and specific needs of the Indian construction sector. The focus of ConstructHelix is to digitalise construction project workflows through its offering of SaaS solutions, enabling a connected data environment with seamless information flow across people and technologies.

Swiss cement-maker Holcim is planning to sell its Indian businesses, Ambuja Cement and ACC, to local conglomerate Adani Group for $6.6bn. In the meantime, Holcim completed the acquisition of PRB Group, France’s biggest independent manufacturer of specialty building solutions which product range includes coatings, insulation, advanced energy-efficiency and renovation solutions.

Swedish construction company Skanska reported that first-quarter profit dropped roughly 21% year over year to $151 million, or about 18 cents a share. Although the global contractor and developer doesn’t have projects in Ukraine, the Russian incursion there poses continued uncertainty for what was an already stressed supply chain.

Construction materials producer and distributor Saint-Gobain has agreed a US$928m cash deal to buy a company that makes and distributes exterior building materials in Canada and the US. The purchase of family-owned Kaycan is intended to make the top siding firm in Canada and enlarging its range of vinyl products across the USA with complementary ranges including aluminium and engineered wood. The purchase price represents a multiple of approximately 11.2 times Kaycan’s 2021-2022 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation.