Steel boss James Brand raises his voice above the roar of metal being funnelled into a foundry furnace as he details how rampant costs have pushed him to raise his prices by 70%, according to Reuters.

Yet he says that, despite this hefty hike, his customers in sectors including oil and gas, autos and construction are placing new orders at a record-breaking gallop. His order book has ballooned from the usual 4 to 6 weeks to 6 months.

Those clients anticipate further price rises at a time when the cost of pig iron and scrap metal is going through the roof, fuelled by the Ukraine war, and the vast amount of energy needed to melt the two inputs into cast iron has never been more expensive.

“With raw materials and costs escalating, customers are thinking, ‘If I don’t buy now, in two months it will be even more expensive,’” Brand said amid the heat, dust and hubbub of United Cast Bar’s (UCB) factory in a part of northern England that once powered the Industrial Revolution.

“People are placing orders ahead, to try and fix as many costs as they can.”

Having once struggled to increase prices at all, UCB is now reviewing them every month and gradually marking them up, extra costs that will seep into global production lines, further stoking inflation and a consumer cost-of-living crisis.

Yet Brand said despite the price rises, the pressures were still building on the business. Without giving full financial details, he said UCB’s gross margin had dropped by about 6%.

Similar problems are being felt by steelmakers and other industrial companies across Europe. They’re caused by rocketing power prices, driven by a supply squeeze, as well as ongoing Covid disruption and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – two countries that are both major producers of pig iron.