The Russian attack on Ukraine is causing major disruptions to the global metals market and is pushing up the costs for local businesses in the process.
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Russia is a leading producer of metals including nickel, manganese and aluminium, and pressures to ban its products from trading on the London Metals Exchange (LME) are growing.
The metals market had been subject to wild swings since war began, with key metals used in steel production (zinc, nickel and aluminium) now between 10 and 30 percent higher than they were a month ago due uncertainty over supply.
At its peak, the price of nickel rose nearly two thirds in a matter of days in early March, jumping from US$29,800 per tonne to US$48,200 per tonne before easing in the following weeks, according to data from the LME.
The general manager of local metal importer, Tiger Steel, Brent Curnow said the steep price increases at the beginning of the war were the biggest he had seen in 15 years.
The company supplies a range of bridge builders, roofing companies, tank manufacturers and construction firms domestically.
Curnow said the price shocks caused steel mills to put a temporary halt on sales and nickel was withdrawn from online auctions for two weeks.
"The price of raw materials were going up so quickly that if they offered a price today, by tomorrow they could be losing money."
Curnow said despite the price increases demand was the highest he had ever seen.
"Clients have orders, they must purchase the steel to produce the items they are making."
Demand was strong globally and it was often a race for companies to get their orders in because prices were increasing by the day, Curnow said.
One of the features of the market was that quotes from steel mills stood for just 24 hours, where in the past a quote was valid for two weeks, Curnow said.
"If you don't order within that 24 hours you might have to wait another month to then reorder. It's a guarantee you will be paying more the following month."
A commodities expert at Fitch Solutions, Sabrin Chowdhury, expects the disruption to last a while.
"With the war being prolonged and with doubt over how long it's going to last metal prices will remain elevated for a time to come - at least the first half of this year."
Brent Curnow said there was not much could be done about the surge in prices and it was incumbent on businesses to increase their forward orders to protect against supply shortages.
"But it's going to place more pressure on our shipping, more pressure on our trucking and ports that are already over capacity. So there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be sorted...it seems that New Zealand industry is not coping at the moment."
