I doubt with increasing energy prices that model materials in any form will come down in price. Years ago steel prices trebled and we had to buy a tonne at a time of a particular size just to get it. Watching YouTube videos on building wooden structures they say board prices have dropped over the last twelve months where as an email I get each month from a UK supplier tells me all building materials are rising some months between 5 and 20%. I generally have a bigger buy and bite the bullet sourcing all from a known relatively local supplier, but even then some sizes are not always available.

Why would they drop it? For fear of loosing trade to others offering the goods at a lesser cost who just work on adding a percentage to their purchase cost

.

To demonstrate your point:

The highly competitive [consumer driven] Supermarket Petrol-price has been forced down quite dramatically: Yesterday, I paid “only” £1.59 per litre for Tesco Momentum … which is a massive reduction from its recent peak.

MichaelG.

Yes. Petrol prices go up and down all the time. I have yet to ever see retail steel and aluminium prices go down. Or most other consumer goods for that matter.

Or maybe not! Whilst the cost of energy doesn't help, it's just one of many factors driving the global economy.

Focussing on the UK, this graph shows the value of the pound has been falling since the 13th century!

The graph goes up to 2019, since when the value of the pound has fallen even more sharply. The decision to leave the EU and Covid have had a much larger impact on costs in recent years than Green. Inflation is at a 50 year high, between 5% and 18% depending on what you have to buy or sell. It's a mixed and hideously complicated story, house prices are slowly falling, but food and material prices are rising sharply. The ability of the private sector to pass inflationary price rises on to customers has resulted in a rash of public sector strikes, because their pay lags a couple of years behind the rest of the labour market. Nurse either strike or leave and work for the NHS via an Agency. Ironically, the government can't afford to pay nurses directly, but it can afford to pay the higher rates charged by Agencies. And this despite Agency staff being less effective, because they lose continuity and team spirit due to being used to fill gaps.

Interesting discussion this morning on the radio about the US Coal Industry. Lots of coal in the US, but the industry is struggling despite strong verbal support and anti-green action from President Trump throughout his term.

In practice the politics is almost irrelevant, US coal is currently caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the availability of cheap gas in the US. Not only cheap, but much cleaner and easier to use than solid fuel. The hard place is the rapid rise of cheap green electricity in the US because it's commercially profitable: 8 times more green installed under Trump (anti) than Obama (pro).

The market drives prices, not politicians. In the case of US Coal, customers prefer cheap clean energy to a dirty fuel that costs more.

The same sort of forces drive other costs in much the same way. Prices are rising in the UK partly because the whole world is chasing commodities in short supply, an issue related to Covid, and partly because the failure of certain politically motivated actions undermined the UK economy.

Blaming prices rises on Green doesn't help because the real problem is far more complicated!

Dave

Metal prices have started to come down, I see this in my day job.

If I want/need metal I just buy it, even at 100% loadings it's still worth the pleasure I get from machining it in to swarf/scrap/maybe useful tools…..

Jim

I don't bother with the online stores anymore unless I'm in a pinch and need to order something weird or am so busy I need delivery.

Both the profiler I use and my two most local stockholders, offer substantially better prices than anything I can get on the internet, even if at the moment their quotes are valid for a maximum of 5 days.

In fact it's often no more expensive to order stuff laser or flame cut from the profiler than it would be to order a sheet of steel on the net and do the cutting myself, and they do free delivery (unlike the two stockholders who charge for small deliveries but will sell ex-works same-day).

It's also notable that if I'm buying larger material (heavy sections, thick plate, large bar-stock, and especially pipe) the stockholders go from "a little bit cheaper" to "like half the price" compared to the internet resellers.

Ordering from a seller who is set up predominantly for trade customers can be awkward at first, but if you know what you want, is generally a nicer customer experience even if you're not a business customer.

My plan is to spend the last of my beloved spondulicks just before the grim reaper arrives. I've looked for a loophole, but you can't take it with you…

Dave

Hi Bryan, the Pope probably only took what John Lennon sang in one line of the Beatles song, The Ballard of John and Yoko; "Oh boy when you're dead you don't take nothing with you but your soul – think." Which is only what any of us could take I guess.

Regards Nick.

Unleaded at a Shell garage around the corner is 156.9p a litre, but a Shell garage on the main road into town is 151.9 – I can't figure it out either

Rob