Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

What is the current situation with construction steel in Bavaria? Our general contractor says he is having massive problems and cannot get any construction steel at all. Is the market really empty or are the prices just so high that people prefer to wait?

How is the situation with reinforcing steel in Bavaria currently? Our general contractor says he is having massive problems and can't get any reinforcing steel at all. Is the market really empty or are the prices just so high that people prefer to wait?

According to our general contractor, the situation is very critical at the moment. Steel is only issued when it is urgently needed on construction sites. Suppliers are currently unwilling to deliver for stock purchases or well in advance. How they are supposed to verify this, however, is a mystery to me. Presumably, the honest ones are the fools here once again. o_O

According to our general contractor, this is currently very critical. Only steel that is urgently needed on construction sites is being issued. Suppliers are currently not willing to deliver for stock purchases or far in advance. However, how they are supposed to verify this is a mystery to me. Presumably, the honest ones are once again the fools. o_O

No, steel was already scarce a few weeks ago. And since some plants are closed and the raw materials for them are currently not keeping up, there simply is nothing left: "Electricity prices have risen so much that the Lech steelworks in Bavaria are now taking action and suspending energy-intensive steel production. The production is economically ‘no longer sensible’." 10.03.2022, 12:10 Last year there were no KG pipes anymore because a plant in the USA was closed for 3 months for the granulate as a raw material. Now steel in construction is somewhat more important than a sewer pipe....

How is the situation with reinforcing steel in Bavaria at the moment? Our general contractor says he has massive problems and cannot get any reinforcing steel. Is the market really empty or are the prices just so high that people prefer to wait?

Steel is expensive and hardly available. The market is so swept clean, I have never experienced that before. Reinforcing steel used to come very often from Russia. Steel mills in Europe are not running at full capacity because of high energy prices, etc. There was a forecast that it would recover in the second quarter, but that was before the coal embargo. It will still take some time until things return to normal.

In addition, Ukraine was a relatively large steel producer.

But it's not a big deal since there are also problems with clay tiles and Poroton.

But it's not a big deal since there are also problems with Tonziegel and Poroton.

which is also logical - because a huge amount of natural gas is needed to fire bricks. With a tenfold increase in the spot price, this simply is no longer profitable.

And if one had previously secured the prices through long-term contracts at around 4 to 5 cents/kWh, it is much easier and less risky to either run the brickworks only at half load (for the really good regular customers or the contracts still to be completed) or to shut down completely to sell the gas quantities freed up this way on the spot market for 10 to 20 cents/kWh.

The course of events as predicted by Peter Pohlmann...