Steel Mills

U.S. Steel Committed to Industrial Equipment & Construction Markets

November 26, 2019

The following article is written by John Packard, President & CEO, Steel Market Update

On Sunday, SMU published in my Final Thoughts the following: “There has also been discussion about U.S. Steel in the marketplace as to whether the mill has decided to concentrate on auto, appliance, energy and electrical markets and perhaps move away from other market segments. This could explain their decision to move away from indexed-based contracts and the removal of some of their blast furnaces from the existing market. I don’t know if this is indeed the case, and I will attempt to speak about this to U.S. Steel to see if we can get a response.”

U.S. Steel responded with, “We continue to provide products such as heavy gauge, wide hot-rolled coil into Industrial Equipment, as well as the light gauge Galvalume and Light gauge Galvanized products to our construction customers. We value all segments of our customer profile, and any plans to remove or replace certain segments will be communicated to our investors and clients.”

I want to make one thing quite clear to our readers, SMU does not take positions on what markets individual mills should/should not cover. That is a business decision they make based on their capabilities, location of mills to customers, costs to produce and competitive factors.

What is important, in my opinion, is the steel industry is undergoing a rebirth, with new mills being able to roll new products employing new technologies in new locations. U.S. Steel is one of the mills that has begun to make moves that will change the face of the mill and the steel industry over the next few years. The partial acquisition of EAF producer Big River Steel, the announcement of new technologies being introduced to their Mon Valley operation and the construction of the EAF in Alabama are all big moves for USS. SMU will continue to report on the status of construction, the changes occurring within the mill and how their customers (and to a much lesser degree their investors) feel about those changes.