Ryerson Holding Corp. expects a net loss of between $26 million and $28 million for the second quarter of 2020. In earnings guidance issued July 13, Ryerson said revenue will be in the range of $765 million to $775 million. “Early indications for the third quarter are seeing a continuation of the recovery initiated in […]
Air Liquide, a supplier of industrial gases, plans to invest more than $100 million to upgrade and extend its Gulf Coast pipeline by 28 miles to serve Steel Dynamics, Inc.’s planned minimill in Sinton, Texas. Under the agreement with SDI, Air Liquide will install a new Air Separation Unit with the capacity to produce more […]
Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), a manufacturing and technology alliance devoted to promoting manufacturing innovation, has announced a $28.8 million collaborative funding effort to support nine cutting-edge Canadian projects, including one at ArcelorMittal Dofasco. NGen runs Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster, a government initiative begun in 2018 that pledged up to $950 million to match private […]
For the second year in a row, Nucor Corp. was recognized as a General Motors Supplier of the Year during a virtual ceremony on June 24. Less than 1 percent of GM’s suppliers receive this award. Nucor remains the only electric arc furnace steelmaker to get this recognition. Supplier of the Year award winners were […]
SSAB’s Montpelier, Iowa, steel mill will begin a four-week outage starting on June 27. The downtime is for planned bi-annual maintenance, said a spokesperson for the company. SSAB Americas operates two scrap-based electric arc furnaces, one at Montpelier and the other in Mobile, Ala., with a combined annual production capacity of 2.4 million tons. In […]
Worthington Industries will start its fiscal year 2021 under the leadership of Andy Rose as president and chief executive officer. Rose will succeed John P. McConnell who will remain with the company as executive chairman. The transition is effective Sept. 1. Rose joined Worthington in 2008 as vice president and chief financial officer, helping to […]
AK Steel, a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs, was named GM Supplier of the Year for Raw Materials during General Motors’ 28th annual Supplier of the Year Awards June 24. AK Steel was among 116 suppliers recognized by GM for their performance in 2019. The award is reserved for suppliers who meet performance metrics for quality, execution, […]
Worthington Industries faced a challenging quarter as stay-at-home orders and closure of nonessential businesses impacted the markets it serves. Demand levels fluctuated depending on the market with company conditions normal in March, break even in April and profitable in May, albeit at lower levels. Although the economic outlook is still unclear, Worthington expects a return to […]
The Ports of Indiana has been awarded a Marine Highway Grant by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration to develop a steel barge shuttle with Nucor Steel at its Jeffersonville port. The project will allow barge shipments of steel coils from Ghent, Ky., to the Port of Indiana-Jeffersonville. The $778,766 project includes the construction […]
PRCO America, Inc., a Chinese company that manufactures refractory brick used by steel mills to line their furnaces and transfer ladles, plans to open their first U.S. facility, in Graves County, Ky., by the end of the year. The western Kentucky location was chosen for its proximity to many steel mills, as well as to […]
Steel Dynamics expects its second-quarter earnings to be significantly lower than first-quarter results. Adjusted earnings per diluted share are expected to be in the range of $0.40 to $0.44, well below $0.88 per share reported in Q1. The decline in earnings is due to lower steel demand and selling prices attributed to the temporary closures […]
Mexican steelmakers Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) and Villacero have a signed a non-binding agreement to merge assets as a new company. The agreement gives the two parties 90 days to complete regulatory documents to move forward with the reported $300 million deal. A June 18 filing with the Mexican Stock Exchange said: “The agreement […]
U.S. Steel anticipates the second quarter will “mark the trough for the year.” In earnings guidance issued on June 17, the company said it expects an adjusted EBITDA loss of $315 million, exclusive of approximately $100 million of estimated restructuring and other charges. The guidance was significantly lower than analyst consensus and nearly five times […]
Nucor is guiding to better-than-expected second-quarter earnings in the range of $0.10 to $0.15 per diluted share. First-quarter earnings were $0.07 per diluted share and included asset losses related to the mill’s equity method investment in Italy. Nucor’s downstream steel products segment remained strong during the quarter due to resilient demand in nonresidential construction. COVID-19 […]
Commercial Metals Co. navigated through third quarter FY 2020 pandemic challenges with almost no disruption to operations or loss of productivity, achieving net sales of $1.34 billion and earnings of $64.2 million Barbara Smith, chairman of the board, president and CEO, commented, “While the effects of the COVID-19 crisis impacted our business throughout the third […]
U.S. Steel plans to indefinitely reduce operations of the pickle line, cold mill and finishing division at Great Lakes Works in Ecorse, Mich. The action is separate from the indefinite idling of ironmaking, steelmaking and hot strip rolling mill facilities announced in December 2019. The company said in a June 8 letter to the Michigan […]
Big River Steel (BRS) expects to complete its capacity expansion by the end of this year more than two months ahead of expectations. The mill in Osceola, Ark., is in the process of doubling its annual steel production capacity from 1.65 million to 3.3 million tons. BRS began operations at its $1.3 billion scrap metal […]
EVRAZ NA will reduce its workforce by an additional 65 employees at EVRAZ Oregon Steel as operations are idled in response to weak demand due to the coronavirus. In a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification to the state of Oregon, EVRAZ said it “has experienced a significant business downturn” and will permanently reduce the workforce […]
U.S. Steel has restarted its No. 1 blast furnace at Edgar Thomson, part of Mon Valley Works. The furnace was idled on April 30 along with the Gary Works No. 6 furnace. Said U.S. Steel spokesperson Meghan Cox: “As we continue to navigate business conditions during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, we are adjusting to changing […]
Cleveland-Cliffs will resume construction on its Hot-Briquetted Iron plant in Toledo earlier than expected. Construction was halted on March 20, 2020, due to the pandemic, but will resume with newly implemented safety measures. Cleveland-Cliffs plans to complete the HBI facility during the fourth quarter of this year. The Tilden mine that supplies AK Steel Middletown […]
Gerdau has partnered with 174 Power Global to develop one of the largest behind-the-meter solar facilities in the nation. The companies have signed a 20-year power purchase agreement that will develop an 80-megawatt solar project adjacent to the Gerdau Midlothian Steel mill in Midlothian, Texas. An array of more than 231,00 solar panels, spanning 700 […]
Olympic Steel is expanding its southeastern footprint with the opening of a new 120,000-square-foot metal processing facility in Buford, Ga., that will act as a primary flat rolled fabrication hub for the region, which also includes facilities in Locust, N.C., Winder, Ga.; and Hanceville, Ala. Olympic Steel’s facilities in the Southeast offer a wide array […]
Algoma Steel welcomed a decision by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to initiate an antidumping investigation regarding hot-rolled heavy steel plate exported from Chinese Taipei, Germany, South Korea, Malaysia and Turkey. Algoma submitted a complaint to CBSA on April 6, 2020, alleging that the goods indicated were illegally dumped, causing injury to Canadian producers […]
U.S. Steel announced a four-year agreement to sell a “substantial volume” of iron ore pellets to Algoma Steel in Ontario, Canada. The purchase agreement runs from 2021 through 2024 and provides a new long-term customer for U.S. Steel’s Minnesota mines. Monday’s announcement follows an iron ore purchase agreement with Stelco in April that gives Stelco […]
Wholesalers of HVAC products for the construction market report surprisingly strong sales given the coronavirus situation, but also concerns about construction demand in the second half when current work is completed and there are fewer new projects in the pipeline. In a conference call this morning, members of the Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors […]
Wholesalers of HVAC products have weathered the pandemic surprisingly well so far and are more concerned about construction demand months from now than they are about their near-term prospects. Consider what has happened since April as a result of the market’s response to the virus: Steel mills are operating at just above 50 percent of […]
By CRU Economist Anissa Chabib, from CRU’s Economic Outlook On May 8, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the official U.S. unemployment data for April. Unemployment increased to 14.7 percent from 4.4 percent in March. This is the highest rate and the largest month-on-month increase in the history of the series, which was created […]
Cleveland-Cliffs expects operations to normalize during the second quarter as end-markets begin recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. “Although the pandemic effect led to automotive plant shutdowns over the past six weeks, the timing and pace of production restarts as well as consumer sales data have both exceeded our expectations,” said Cliffs’ Chairman, President and CEO […]
By CRU Senior Consultants Amir Sabet and Josefa Carrere, from CRU’s Steelmaking Raw Materials Monitor The Covid-19 pandemic has generated significant uncertainty in the commodities market. For the steel sector, this has resulted in a fall in demand and steelmakers have responded by taking a wide range of capacity-related actions. In this Insight we show […]
Tenaris announced it will reduce the workforce at its Bay City tubular mill by 200 employees. “We have an unexpected combination of events straining U.S. and global markets—a drastic drop in demand caused by the pandemic and an oversupply triggered by the price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. In these stark conditions, we must […]