“What we are seeing is suppliers trying to bump up prices and the industry wondering if it has enough work to support those increases. Last year quite a few price increases did not stick,” says Julian Anderson, principal with Rider Levett Bucknall. The RLB construction selling price index shows an annual increase of just 0.7%.

“I don’t see any big changes coming. This will be the cost model for at least the rest of this year,” says Karl Almstead, vice president responsible for the Turner building cost index, which is up just 0.9% for the year. He is concerned that public work is “evaporating” even before the private sector recovers. “Anything that has federal dollars attached to it will be very hard to come by,” Anderson adds.

Contractors are desperate and ignoring increases in commodity prices, says Don Short, president of The Tempest Co., Omaha, Neb. He says they are consciously bidding below prices being quoted by their suppliers and then betting prices won’t go up further, making their plight even worse. Right now, copper is the biggest culprit, he adds. “I think 2011 is going to be a year of bankruptcy,” says Short.

“Asphalt has the greatest potential to spike during the next few quarters, but prices for most building materials will be rather flat in 2011,” says Robert Martin, building materials analyst for IHS Global Insight, Washington, D.C. Furthermore, housing appears to be following a “W” cycle, says Martin. “The only question is how steep the second decline will be.” That will certainly check prices for materials such as lumber and wallboard,” he says.

Structural steel and reinforcing bar prices are still riding high as producers try to pass along a huge spike in scrap prices. “Scrap reached its second-highest level ever,” says John Anton, steel analyst with IHS Global Insight. “Record level prices with such low demand is illogical,” he adds. Anton predicts that steel prices will start to come down in April and that by May contractors will see broad declines. He sees the average price for structurals falling from a peak of $842 a ton this quarter to $691 a ton by the third quarter of 2011. He predicts that rebar prices will fall from $740 a ton this quarter to $600 a ton by the end of the year.

Aftershocks

纽约市布拉德福德研究（Bradford Research）的钢铁分析师查尔斯·布拉德福德（Charles Bradford）表示，最近日本地震不会影响全球钢铁价格，因为北部地区的钢铁容量很少，这是最近灾难的首当其冲。他说，在地震中，地震震中400公里以内的11种钢厂中只有两家在地震后停止了手术。一个是Ibaraki县的Sumitomo Metal Industries的Kashima设施，另一个是Nippon Steel在Iwate的Kamaishi Plant，均为Iwate，均为集成钢厂。布拉德福德说，地震影响了2800万吨的产能，占所有11植物的容量的2％。

Power shortages at some large Japanese flat-rolling mills have forced them to cut back production, which could tighten supply. But Bradford says he was unsure whether flat-rolled steel prices will rise or fall since it was hard to measure how many mills had restarted production and the effects of lost production at other mills not affected by the earthquake. The extent of lost demand from auto companies that have cut back production is also unclear.

如果日本的废品市场在一段时间内不可行，因为日本是用于生产这些产品的废料的大出口商，因此钢筋或光束的价格也可能上涨。在3月的第二周与2月的同一时期相比，酒吧的价格保持不变。布拉德福德说，在过去三个月中，床单上有70％的增长70％，而Bar的15％上升了7％。

铜的价格可能会受到对含有铜的电子零部件和汽车的生产的干扰。IHS全球洞察报告标题为日本地震，以影响组件的供应和定价，并指出，日本最大的电子组件生产商可忽略不计，这些损害可忽略不计，这些生产商在地震震中的南部经营设施。

“From what we can tell the aluminum industry came through the earthquake fairly well with only a few facilities suffering damage, but rolling blackouts are expected to slow production,” says John Mothersole, nonferrous metals specialist with IHS Global Insight.

“Reconstruction from the earthquake will have an impact on a three- to five-year time horizon,” Mothersole says. He also predicted that the immediate impact of the earthquake could cause three to six months of disruption in the supply chain and reduce demand.

母亲预测，在地震后，铜的消费量今年将以7.0％的速度增长，明年为6.3％。在地震发生之前，2011年全球增长率为7.1％，因此将产生连锁反应。