Steel Mills

SunCoke Energy Performs Well in Q2 on Strong Commodity Markets
Written by Laura Miller
August 2, 2022
Despite lower domestic coke sales in the second quarter, SunCoke Energy is seeing favorable export coke pricing and is increasing its earnings guidance for the year as a result.
“Our domestic coke and logistics segments continued to perform well in the second quarter with the backdrop of strong commodity markets. Although our coke production was impacted due to planned outages this quarter, it was more than offset by higher margins from our export coke sales,” commented president and CEO Mike Rippey in the company’s Q2 earnings report.
SunCoke’s Q2 net income of $18 million was a significant increase from the loss of $8.8 million it incurred in Q2 2021. Q2 revenues of $501.9 million were up 38% year-on-year.
The company’s domestic coke operations shipped just over 1.007 million tons in Q2—a decline of 56,000 tons from the year-ago quarter. The segment is made up of coke-making facilities and heat recovery operations in Jewell, Va.; East Chicago, Ind.; Franklin Furnace, Ohio; Middletown, Ohio; and Granite City, Ill.
For the full year, SunCoke now expects to produce 4.1 million tons of coke domestically and thinks it will continue to see higher export margins.
SunCoke plans to add pig iron production to its raw materials portfolio in the coming years. During Q2, the company entered into a non-binding letter of intent with US Steel to acquire the steelmaker’s Granit City blast furnaces and to build a 2-million-tons-per-year pig iron facility. Permitting and construction of the pig iron plant is expected to take approximately two years.
By Laura Miller, Laura@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Laura Miller
Read more from Laura MillerLatest in Steel Mills

Op-Ed: Ternium CEO Máximo Vedoya wants a fair future forged in steel
After recently receiving an industry honor on behalf of Ternium, I had the opportunity to reflect and share my vision on the state and future of our industry.

Nippon eyeing new $4B U.S. Steel mill to sweeten deal: Report
Nippon Steel could build a new domestic U.S. Steel mill with a total investment of $4 billion.

Nucor cuts CSP by $20/ton, third straight drop
Nucor has lowered its consumer spot price by $20 per short ton, marking the third consecutive weekly decrease.

Nucor reports IT systems breach
Nucor said it temporarily and proactively halted some production operations at various locations.

Cliffs talks DOE funding, blast furnace relining schedule
The future of two projects supported in part by funding through the Department of Energy remains uncertain.