when Elmhurst Group, a Pittsburgh-area developer, started collecting bids for a new mixed-use building last November, the price of the steel frame, roof and cladding panels for the $14-million project came in $382,000 higher than expected—a big enough disappointment to give Elmhurst pause. Overall material costs for the project were running more than $650,000 above what was originally calculated.

Eventually, says Brian Miller, Elmhurst's director of development, the company decided to rebid the steel portion months later to get a lower price. While "less than ideal for vendor relations," the steel rebid was needed because of the unprecedented overall material cost increases.

米勒说：“这根本从来都不是这样。最初的成本增加是在木材中，但后来又迁移到了几乎所有的东西。”

一些材料的价格——肖有关tages—has injected new tensions into supply-chain business relationships. While companies say they are managing the crisis with more creative procurement methods, they rarely speak about the more controversial layer of activity. It includes suppliers that rip up purchase contracts and demand higher prices, owners and contractors re-bidding already-bid contracts to get lower prices—a process that in sunnier times drives down their costs but hurts bidders—and price gouging.

在钢和木材中众所周知的通货膨胀也席卷了其他产品类别，例如绝缘和太阳能电池板。效果有时是项目瘫痪和延期决定的决定。

Right now, owners and contractors can’t decide whether to wait for prices of some materials to fall, or to proceed with projects to avoid more delays—for some, a bigger issue than price.

“我们有一些承包商说，他们将尝试等待大约12个月左右，但仍然不能保证价格或供应链问题将在12个月内解决。”和中央州政府事务经理Associated General Contractors of California。“过去，我们已经看到持续了两年的物质成本上涨，但目前的主要问题是供应链方面”和延误。

历史通货膨胀率

通货膨胀的来源包括支持的运输港口，不利天气，关税，大流行开始时的削减以及刺激对小时工人的影响。

尽管随着流行病的能力返回，一些分析师预计钢铁价格撤退，但根据IHS Markit的第三季度预测，结构金属价格预计在2021年总体上涨了22.8％，而制造的结构表将上涨23.8％。这些数字可能是当年的峰值，代表了第二季度报告的急剧增加，该报告分别预测两种材料分别为9.4％和6.8％。

可以肯定的是，自2020年大流行以来，某些钢价的翻倍并没有破坏钢结构，该建筑经历了自2004 - 2008年以来的价格最大的飞跃，当时看到50％的价格峰值，并且American Institute of Steel Construction首先颁布了合同价格上涨条款的语言。

Depending on the project type, steel materials represent a limited part of the overall cost of a steel-framed building—about 10%, depending on the structure.

Rebidding as a Cost Strategy

但是对于匹兹堡地区开发商Elmhurst Group来说，成本控制至关重要。它的新“创新中心，”a combination of office and warehouse space suited for research and development, will eventually consist of three-story structures. It is being built in two 85,000-sq-ft phases.

当钢铁投标率高时，米勒说：“我们必须回去带来新的竞标者，看看我们是否可以降低价格。”新的出价从382,000美元的钢铁成本增加了222,000美元，米勒很高兴他能够锁定较低的价格。

他说：“有人告诉我，在两三个月内，钢铁成本将增加500,000美元。”18luck.cub

通货膨胀也停滞不前或对运输项目的不确定性产生了不确定性。18luck官网

加利福尼亚河谷地区项目主管George C. Delano说，Caltrans计划重新安排和修复萨克拉曼多的American River Bridge的原始估计现在已经过时了。它的子结构中有管子堆和薄板堆，并在上部结构中具有钢梁。最大的问题是是否要推迟工作，希望价格会下跌。

Rehab and re-decking of the American River Bridge in Sacramento could be delayed over steel prices. Photo: Courtesy of Caltrans

Some analysts foresee such a decline, noting that global production actually exceeds pre-COVID-19 output and the U.S. is back to 2019 levels after months of underproduction.

The decision, Delano wrote in an email, “is a difficult call" because prices may stay the same or even go higher.

Inflation has cornered other project developers into making tradeoffs between cost and schedule.

K. Cyrus Sanandaji, managing director of San Francisco-based developer Presidio Bay Ventures, says one of his company’s general contractors had a project designed with pan decking and metal trusses, where the normal six-month delivery lead time now is one year and threatens to delay the project.

通过重新设计到I梁和从多家制造商那里购买平底锅，该项目已按计划进行。

在新计划下，钢铁成本攀升了10％ - 目前正在控制的时间18luck.cub表的可接受金额。Sanandaji说，如果该项目重新考虑，那么费用将增加15％以上。18luck.cub

绝缘短缺

其他产品类型稀缺和威胁德尔ay projects, too, including polyiso sloped roofing insulation for commercial projects. It now has a current lead time of more than 20 months, Sanandaji says, and “we may need these products in less than half this time” from when it is ordered.

因此，这意味着要寻找其他可能等效的材料，例如Cell Crete或Expanded聚苯乙烯，这些材料可能“具有成本中性或最低成本的成本更快的交货时间”。18luck.cub

埃尔姆赫斯特（Elmhurst）的米勒（Miller）表示，他的公司最近从其总承包商之一中学到了另一种涉及墙壁和屋顶绝缘的问题 - 价格欺诈。

It took the form of “a sudden request” by the manufacturer to a subcontractor and included a threat not to ship and to cancel the order if a $105,000 increase was not agreed to. That raised suspicions.

米勒说，他和他的员工进行了调查，发现一切都符合总承包商的命令，这使得允许12个以上的数周实际提供材料。但是，一旦Elmhurst这样做，绝缘供应商/供应商声称“不可抗力”，指出其制造商 - 供应商的价格超出了其控制。

与该纽约州工业建筑项目中使用的绝缘材料相似，已经延迟和可能的价格进行欺诈。照片：理查德·科尔曼（Richard Korman）新利luck

Elmhurst refused to passively accept the force majeure claim, but it may have few choices. To protect the general contractor who may be stuck with such sudden price increases, Miller now pledges that all Elmhurst new purchase orders and subcontracts will include language to lock in pricing based on issuance and acceptance dates.

他说：“我们不能以突然和意外的成本增加而沿着这条路沿着这条路走，这最终会影响我们在市场上竞争租赁空间的能力。”

撕毁合同：法律观点

缺乏升级条款，钢铁厂和钢铁服务中心有时，例如隔热供应商，只需撕毁购买合同并要求更多的钱即可。但是，目前尚不清楚多少钢制造商交叉同意价格或有升级条款。

There is little contractors can do about such breaches of purchase agreements, since the steel supply industry enjoys and takes advantage of what may be a temporary market power tilt in its favor, attorneys say.

Sherman＆Howard的律师Stephen A. Hess说，钢铁价格飞涨的钢铁价格“根据供应合同，实行严重的不当行为，从完全拒绝兑现合同到供应商的要求，要求超出约定的合同价格的付款。”

他说，合同法名义上为买家提供了一些保护，但承包商很少想在投降更加权宜的（尽管很痛苦）替代方面进行有希望的诉讼。

市场力量和缺乏价格竞争可能会鼓励或允许钢铁厂通过升级条款将价格风险转移给承包商。

If a beam or product of a specific size is needed and only one steel mill or service center in the area can supply it, the supplier enjoys an edge.

So far, steel fabricators and erectors and steel supply centers have been reluctant to publicly discuss the behind-the-scenes adjustments to the steel price spike. The Metal Service Center Institute, the association whose members include steel service centers, the service-oriented distributors for steel mills, declined to answer questions.

In some cases, the pricing “tactics are predatory,” says Hess. “In other cases mid-stream suppliers have little choice as they are caught in fixed-price supply contracts with contractors but are compelled to purchase steel at ever-increasing market prices; honoring their contracts may ruin their businesses.”

在某些情况下，在某些情况下，史蒂文·亨德森（Steven Henderson链条给所有者。

“If orders can’t be fulfilled at contract prices, and there is no material cost escalation clause, parties are forced" to look for a legal remedy, he says. But forcing another party to pay for cost increases due to market fluctuations in material prices "generally isn't helpful," he says

“违反合同从根本上没有任何错误，但是后果远远超出了特定的合同纠纷。”

亨德森（Henderson）并没有戴上手套并撤退到他们的角落，而是建议通过将争端作为商业谈判来更好地服务当事方。亨德森说，以说​​服所有者收取费用的共同目标的供应商和承包商“可能会发现值得额外的钱来保存业务关系。”

Owners benefit from sharing cost risk, too, because contractors are more likely to provide realistic pricing without exorbitant markups necessary to account for the risk of volatile material costs.

Partnerships and Contingencies

David Alford, regional vice president of preconstruction at McCarthy Building Cos., agrees that cooperation is the best approach.

He says his company is currently “working with many of our steel trade partners and their suppliers to understand the current material market” to buy at the right time.

以防万一合作不占上风，可能需要一种新型的紧急基金。

埃尔姆赫斯特（Elmhurst）的米勒（Miller）说：“我们试图提出次要的意外情况 - 通货膨胀意外情况。”“这很痛苦，因为投资者不喜欢看到。”