Kpex v2.3

What's New in Kpex

Everything we've been building, month by month. Newest first.

September 2026 1 area
ISBL Equipment Library — unified with Module A, and equipment-only estimating

The ISBL Battery Limit — Equipment Library now presents the same component cards as the Module A cost-curve catalog, so the two libraries look and behave alike. Its equipment viewer gained a working size slider for dimension-driven equipment — vessels, tanks, columns, spheres and stacks now sweep their real size range (for example a storage sphere from 20 to 60 ft diameter) and price correctly at each size, instead of the slider sitting stuck on the smallest point. And when you add an item to an estimating session you can now choose its scope: the full Battery Limit (equipment plus its ISBL take-off) or Equipment only — the bare equipment cost before ISBL — with the choice carried through the session view, the printed report and the Excel export.

August 2026 9 areas
Rental Equipment rates — rebuilt as a family catalog

Z.3 Rental Equipment was rebuilt as a browsable catalog: expand an equipment family to see its equipment cards, then open one for a work session that builds the hourly, daily, weekly and monthly rate from the machine's investment cost — with the full ownership and operating breakdown, capacity/spec options that change the price, and a methodology panel that documents how every rate is derived. Rates escalate to the current month on the CAF Construction Machinery & Equipment index, and selected equipment can be gathered into a session report and printed.

Class 5 cost curves — a facility for every estimate, aligned to Module C

The Class 5 cost-curve library was extended to cover the full range of facilities in Module C — manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, steel and aluminium, pulp and paper, food, steam and chilled water, waste-to-energy, LNG, onshore and offshore oil & gas, buildings and infrastructure, and more — so a screening estimate can start from a curve for almost any project. Each curve is now anchored to the same validated cost models that drive the Module C facility estimators, so a Class 5 curve estimate and the detailed Module C estimate for the same facility land on the same number. Redundant duplicate curves were retired so each product shows a single authoritative curve, and the minerals family gained bentonite, mica and phosphate-mining curves. Every curve is now labelled by its level — Facility or Functional Unit — making the library's structure explicit: equipment components build a functional unit (a process unit or product), and functional units assemble into a facility (the level of a Module C model). Curves calibrated outside the US Gulf Coast (North Sea offshore, the German heat-pump plant) now carry their origin country, so choosing a project country moves the estimate from the model's true origin to your location — applying the inverse factor where needed — instead of assuming a US-Gulf origin.

A project holds many estimates — not a single class

The AACE class belongs to an estimate, not to a project — one project can carry several estimates at different classes as its definition matures. Project pages, portfolio cards and reports no longer stamp the project with a single class, and the dashboard and portfolio charts now group estimates by class, giving a truer picture of where the work actually stands.

CAF Cost Index — four new regions & comparison tools

The CAF Cost Index went global. Four regions joined the original Americas index — Europe (Euro Area), Asia-Pacific anchored on Australia, Japan, and the Middle East & Africa — each built from that region’s own official statistics on the same method and family tree, so escalation reflects where a project’s equipment actually comes from. The index also gained a quarterly view, a printable snapshot of the latest values across every index, and a compare-any-two-periods mode that reads the escalation factor between them.

Global CAPEX Project Monitor

A new public register collects the world’s most significant industrial, energy and infrastructure projects in one place, organised by country and region and aligned to Kpex’s Module C families — each with its scope, owner, announced capacity and published CAPEX and date. It is the foundation for CAF’s global CAPEX-per-capacity benchmarking, monitored month to month so future estimates can be checked against real, recent projects. It now also records each project’s capacity in its cost driver, so the projects of one technology fit a CAPEX cost curve — the first, battery gigafactories, spanning real plants from 13 to 100 GWh/yr.

Location Factor — a page for every country

Clicking a country on the Location Factor map now opens a full country page: the five factors (A–E) with how each is calculated, the procurement, labour and engineering inputs versus the US Gulf Coast, a country profile with flag, principal-cities map and key facts, and the country’s major projects of the last decade. An “Adjust factors” button opens the interactive breakdown in place, and countries with currency instability carry a clear caution note.

Estimating — your currency, your WBS, shared

Estimates can now be read in your own currency: pick it at the top and totals, breakdowns, line items, the printed report and Excel all convert at the day’s European Central Bank rate, with the rate and date recorded (the base stays in US dollars for benchmarking). Module C — Facilities was upgraded to a detailed, element-level model with per-account P10 / P50 / P90 and multi-driver configuration; you can build your own Work Breakdown Structure to any depth, share an estimate for real-time co-editing, and add real ISBL bulk materials across all ten disciplines to equipment priced from a purchase order or Excel. A new graphical Field Estimator composes a Class 4–5 estimate visually and exports a branded PDF or Excel.

Equipment catalog, offshore & renewables

The Module A catalog now shows prices current to the latest Cost Index month with a metric ⇄ imperial switch in every estimator, draws equipment icons from one validated master set, and honours the material of construction so alloys are no longer priced as carbon steel. The Offshore Oil & Gas estimator gained the full platform taxonomy — fixed, floating and subsea — and a new district-heating Large Heat Pump model joined Module C’s renewables.

Marketplace, accounts & a calmer interface

New marketplace tooling arrived: a Vendor Pipeline for manufacturer and partner outreach, a reference-vendor catalogue priced from the validated curves, and an AI-assisted ISBL Component Author that reads a P&ID to propose a material take-off. Account management became dependable (reactivate, restore, edit), long pages now open collapsed as a clean index, and the Knowledge Library gained a consistent dossier design with Save-as-PDF and an internal “Audits” chapter.

July 2026 3 areas
Cost Index & escalation intelligence

Cost curves began escalating on the live CAF Cost Index — estimates reflect this month’s index rather than a figure published a quarter ago — and every curve now declares its cost scope, so it is never mistaken for a project total. Benchmark calibration was refreshed, and new methodology dossiers were added to the Knowledge Library.

Deeper estimating & decommissioning

Ten infrastructure and process models moved to multi-driver pricing — voltage, terrain, metallurgy, service, not capacity alone — including a full HV transmission-line model. Every parametric estimator gained a cost summary in its PDF and a one-click Excel export, plus a clearer “continue estimate” flow with unsaved-changes warnings. Module E — ABEX decommissioning went live across all six sectors, and a new Water & Wastewater treatment estimator covers four facility types.

Access, pricing & registration

Membership access control was applied across the platform, pricing became database-driven, and a registration flow with email verification was introduced — with estimates and projects private by default.

June 2026 1 area
Module C — facility cost models

Module C came online: parametric estimators for Onshore and Offshore Oil & Gas, Refineries and LNG, extended across Chemicals, Power, Renewable Energy (11 technologies), Buildings (20 types), Mining, Nuclear and Infrastructure — each with P10 / P50 / P90 percentile selection and an adopted Total Installed Cost.

May 2026 1 area
Foundations

Kpex launched on its foundations: benchmark capacity–cost Cost Curves with full data provenance, the CAF Cost Index computed monthly from BLS and FRED, multi-currency support with historical ECB rates frozen per estimate, and the ISBL / MTO take-off tool, Location Factor Index, Cost Adjustment Index and Assessment Tools suite.

CAF Corporation — Kpex Project Cost Database · kpex · Prices and indices update automatically with the CAF Cost Index each month.