Late this afternoon, RG Steel sent a letter to their customers advising them of the decision to take down the "L" blast furnace at Sparrows Point and to idle a number of pieces of finishing equipment during the Holidays. Even though the company has published all of their mill lead times as "Inquire" their letter explains the Warren and Wheeling operations are "largely unaffected" by the "situation" at Sparrows Point.

Below are the contents of the letter to the RG Steel customers signed by the General Manager Commercial, Jerry Nelson:

January 3, 2012

Our Valued Customers:

As many of you are now aware, RG Steel decided to hot idle the blast furnace at Sparrows Point just before the holidays. The furnace continues to be on hot idle, but is able to restart in just a few days once the exact timing of the restart has been determined. Finishing operations at the plant which were in large part idled as well during the holidays, will restart this week processing available inventory. The Warren and Wheeling facilities of RG steel are continuing to run as scheduled and are largely unaffected by the situation at Sparrows Point.

We understand the critical nature of all customer orders and are working hard to communicate to you the effect these events may have to orders on the books. Please continue to work closely with your RG Steel Sales Representatives for specific order details.

We hope to resolve the issues associated with this unexpected outage shortly and resume normal operations at Sparrows Point. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through this challenge.

Sincerely,

Jerry Nelson