Record Year, Q4 Results for SSAB Group in 2021

Compared with the third quarter of 2021, earnings were up $317 million SEK ($33.54 million USD), also driven by higher prices. Earnings were partially offset by lower shipments, down 27% year on year to 413,000 tons, due to planned maintenance outages.

Prices for heavy plate in the U.S. rose somewhat during the first part of the fourth quarter before leveling out. Demand for heavy plate in North America was good through the fourth quarter, while inventory levels at distributors were still low, the company said.

In all, SSAB Group saw all-time high net earnings of $14.66 billion Swedish krona ($1.55 billion USD) on revenue of $95.891 billion SEK ($10.14 billion USD) for the full year.

The results are thanks in part to fourth-quarter earnings of $5.458 billion SEK ($58 million USD) on revenue of $27.337 billion SEK ($2.89 billion USD) versus $16.988 billion SEK ($1.8 billion USD) during the same year-ago quarter.

Thanks to the historic result, SSAB Group is debt free, with net cash of 2.3 billion SEK ($24 million USD), the company said.

Despite some uncertainty due to a shortage of components at several downstream customers, and bottlenecks in logistics chains, the steelmaker said the outlook for the first quarter of 2022 remains positive.

“We see good underlying demand for plate in North American, especially for infrastructure purposes,” SSAB President and CEO Martin Lindqvist said. “The spread between hot rolled coil and plate should overtime normalize. We expect good demand and results to continue.”

SSAB Americas’ shipments are expected to be higher during Q1 2022 compared to the prior quarter, whereas prices are expected to be stable, company executives said.

By David Schollaert, David@SteelMarketUpdate.com