SunCoke earnings slip in Q1 as pact with USS on Granite City extended

SunCoke Energy posted lower earnings in the first quarter. Meanwhile, the company has extended the cokemaking contract with U.S. Steel’s Granite City Works in Illinois through the end of September 2025.

The Lisle, Ill.-based raw material processing and handling company reported net income of $17.3 million in the first quarter. That’s off 14% from $20 million a year earlier. Net sales fell 11% to $436 million in the same comparison.

The company logged sales volumes of 898,000 short tons in the quarter, up 10% from Q1’24.

“As previously discussed, our domestic coke results were adversely impacted by the Granite City contract extension economics, as well as lower spot blast coke sales volumes,” Katherine Gates, President and CEO, said in a statement on April 30.

Granite City/guidance

Gates said the Granite City contract has been extended through the end of September 2025, “with the option to extend for an additional three months.”

“As we continue to navigate through this uncertain environment, we are reaffirming our full-year 2025 consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $210 million-$225 million,” Gates said.

In an earnings call on April 30, Mark Marinko, SVP and CFO, said the guidance assumes the Granite City cokemaking agreement will be extended for the additional three months – that means through the end of 2025.

Gates said on the call the the Granite City project “continues to be a top priority for us.”

“The strong fundamentals of the project remain unchanged despite our frustration with the ongoing government delays,” she said, referring to USS’ stalled potential sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel.

Background

Recall that SunCoke signed a non-binding agreement with the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker in June 2022.

Under the pact, SunCoke would get the blast furnaces at USS’ Granite City Works near St. Louis. The blast furnaces would be repurposed to process iron ore and manufacture pig iron for U.S. Steel.

USS indefinitely idled iron- and steelmaking at its Granite City Works in late November 2023, including its ‘B’ blast furnace, one of two BFs at the mill. The ‘A’ furnace was indefinitely idled in April 2020, according to SMU’s blast furnace status table.