May constructsteel newsletter

New orders in the Eurozone construction sector have return to growth territory as IHS Markit Eurozone Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index rose from 45.0 in February to 50.1 in March, signifying a fractional expansion in construction activity in the construction zone. Job creation has resumed in the eurozone’s construction sector after 12 months of falls, though some activities and countries are still in decline.

Contractors and clients in the UK including Balfour Beatty, Costain, HS2, Mace, Multiplex and Skanska have adopted a standard prequalification system for subcontractors and suppliers. The Common Assessment Standard means that their supply chains will need a single certification to work with them and reduce duplication of effort that is costing the sector up to £1 billion a year.

Dutch consultant Arcadis has published its annual rankings of the most expensive cities in which to carry out a construction project. The 2021 International Construction Cost Index ranks Geneva as the most expensive city to undertake construction work, followed by London, Copenhagen, Oslo and Zurich, and shows a fall in costs in American cities, reflecting a fall in the value of the dollar. Additionally, prices have not fallen in response to the pandemic, while historically drop in construction demand would cause construction prices to fall sharply.

UK consulting engineer Arup has partnered with Madaster, an online platform intended to make construction materials part of the circular economy – so hat they can be reused at the end of their life. Madaster, which currently operates in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, creates a “material passport” for building elements. This gives the product’s quality, origin, and the location of the material in a building or structure, as well as information about how it can be reused.

After a decrease in the number of construction cranes in use across major cities in the U.S. and Canada, Rider Levett Bucknall’s Crane Index has found an increase in cranes to start 2021. Toronto still towers high with the most cranes in any North American city, with 208, up from 124 in Q3 of 2020. Of the 14 cities tracked by RLB, seven saw an increase in the number of cranes from the last report.

China’s central bank has asked lenders to rein in credit supply, as the surge of lending that sustained the country’s debt-fuelled coronavirus recovery renewed concerns about asset bubbles and financial stability. Previous tightening measures, led by stricter quotas on real estate lending, have failed to quell credit growth. China’s medium-to-longterm consumer loans, comprised mainly of mortgage lending, rose 72 per cent to hit a record $213 billion in the first two months of this year.

China’s domestic rebar margins reached a two-year high of $117.9/mt in April on the back of strong rebar spot prices and a slight easing of iron ore input costs, and bumper sales of excavators in March indicate a strong pipeline of construction activity, which should keep rebar demand and prices well supported throughout the second quarter.

Merchants and building materials producers have warned timber shortages look set to worsen as construction demand rises. World prices for sawn timber have soared in the face of ongoing supply chain disruptions due to the reduced availability of shipping containers, and strong global demand. This has seen timber join steel in seeing unprecedented price hikes over the last few months.

Since the beginning of this year, significant price increases were recorded for construction materials in Germany. Steel products and bitumen, which is used in road construction and for sealing work, were particularly affected by sharp price rises. The reason for the significant increase in steel prices was “apparently limited supply capacities at manufacturers due to the recovery in demand in the automotive and engineering sectors”.

Spain’s cement consumption grew 53% in March from a year earlier as the construction industry recovered from a COVID-19 lockdown that saw the country grind to a halt in 2020. Cement consumption rose to 1.41 million tons in March, recovering from a slump last year and moving 9.3% above the level recording in March 2019.

India’s first 3D-printed home may provide a solution to the country’s shortage of affordable housing, using a technology that is quicker, cheaper and more efficient than traditional construction. The single-storey home, measuring about 56 square metres, was built by Tvasta Manufacturing Solutions in the southern Indian city of Chennai. A home can be built in just five days and be customised, so the technology is suitable for the government’s affordable housing programme, as well as for disaster resettlement.

En+ Group, an Anglo-Russian energy and metals company, has produced aluminium with what it claims is the world’s lowest carbon footprint. The metal is made using a “inert anode” process that produces emissions one hundred times lower than the industry average. Aluminium accounts for the third-highest emissions of all construction materials making this innovation is a major development for green building.

UK consulting engineer Arup and American architect Hickok Cole have designed America’s first high-rise overbuild timber structure – 80M project. The two-storey extension will be located on top of a seven-floor structure – this will add 100,000 sq ft of space, including a penthouse with a roof terrace, to the 290,000 sq ft building. While there has been a renaissance in tall timber construction throughout Europe over the past decade, high-rise mass timber has been slower to take off in the US, partly due to restrictive code requirements, capping the height of timber buildings at 85 feet—a height exceeded by 80 M.

ACS, Spain’s largest contractor, has made an offer to buy a controlling share of Italian toll-road operator, Autostrade per l’Italia, which manages half of Italy’s motorway network, Reuters reports. The offer, which ACS said was worth between €9bn and €10bn, was made to Atlantia, an Italian holding company that holds an 88% stake in Autostrade.

French construction and concessions group Vinci has released its first quarter financial results for 2021, with Vinci Construction seeing sales increase 10% while the revenue for the company as a whole was up 5% compared with the first quarter of 2020. For the construction segment (including Eurovia) the first quarter of 2021 continued the positive trend seen in the second half of 2020 – revenue rose 10% compared with the first quarter of 2020 and 6% relative to the first quarter of 2019.

Two Californian companies, real estate firm Palari Group and construction technology company Mighty Buildings, have announced plans for a $15m development of 3D-printed netzero-energy homes in Rancho Mirage, California. Spread across a five-acre plot, the 15 buildings will be created from Mighty Buildings’ 3D-printed panellised “Mighty Kit” system, which the company says will eliminate 99% of construction waste.

Global engineering and construction firm Bechtel reported $17.6 billion in 2020 total revenue, a 19% drop from the year before. Virginia-based private company, the country’s largest contractor by revenue, also lost ground on its new work and backlog.

Votorantim SA, one of Brazil’s biggest diversified holding companies, is launching a real estate arm, betting on further growth in demand for housing and a revamped office market. Altre, as the newly-launched firm is called, is initially being seeded with unused Votorantim-owned industrial land, but it is looking for new assets, including the development of office buildings.

Mexican cement producer Cemex reported on Thursday a more than 15-fold jump in first-quarter profit, beating analyst expectations and sending its stock price surging. The global cement giant said the results were boosted by higher sales in the United States and in Mexico, as well as by higher cement volumes in most of its markets and higher product prices in Mexico and across Latin Americas plus the Caribbean regions. In the meantime, LafargeHolcim raised its full year guidance after reporting higher sales and doubling its operating profit during the first quarter, sending a positive signal for the global construction sector. The world’s largest cement maker said it was seeing “fantastic growth momentum”, with better results in all of its regions as building resumes after pandemic-driven shutdowns last year.

Swedish construction company Skanska is seeing early signs of recovery in private home building after reporting better than expected first-quarter earnings that boosted its shares. Its Construction division raised its market outlook for the next 12 months for residential building across its markets, and raised the outlook for nonresidential building in Sweden, Britain and the United States.

Irish building materials group Kingspan is investing in H2 Green Steel, a company pioneering steel production using hydrogen. H2 Green Steel was founded in 2020, aiming to build a large-scale fossil-free steel production in northern Sweden. Kingspan is set to be a single-digit minority shareholder alongside mainly Swedish investors.