Market Segment
April 28, 2026
SSAB Americas revenue dips in Q1 despite higher steel prices
Written by Ethan Bernard
SSAB Americas’ revenue fell in the first quarter as negative currency effects outweighed higher steel prices.
The Swedish steelmaker’s US operations logged revenue of 4.99 billion Swedish krona (US$538.9 million) in Q1’26, down 3% from a year earlier. However, EBITDA totaled SEK 637 million (US$68.7 million) in the first quarter, more than double SEK 232 million in the year-ago period.
SSAB Americas’ steel shipments totaled 461,000 metric tons (mt) in Q1’26, up marginally from 450,000 mt in the previous quarter and 457,000 mt in the prior-year period.
The company said demand was strong during Q1’26, with the energy customer segment continuing to be strong and higher activity observed among steel service centers.
Higher steel prices during the quarter could not offset a negative currency exchange, SSAB said.
Section 232 steel tariffs and previous melt-and-pour policies in the US were also having an effect.
“We can clearly see that the import level into the United States have reduced significantly, decreased to less than 2%,” SSAB President and CEO Johnny Sjöströmsaid in an earnings call on Tuesday. “That means that there is higher demand than supply, especially if you talk about these industrial segments, we see a very high demand.”
He pointed out SSAB is one of the few plate producers in the United States.
Regarding the US plate market, Sjöström said, “We’ve recently learned that a lot of distributors and stockholders are running out of stock.”
He continued: “And they have been passing plates to each other just to survive, but now they all realize that they need to start restocking. And so the demand has increased quite fast.”
Production of SSAB Zero, a lower carbon-content product, continued at SSAB Americas’ steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa, with around 20,000 mt produced during the first quarter.
The company expects raw materials costs for SSAB Americas to remain somewhat stable in the second quarter.
Looking further ahead, it predicts the cost for planned maintenance outages at SSAB Americas’ Iowa mill during the third quarter to be SEK 490 million.
The investment in its Axis, Ala., operations to increase the capacity for SSAB Special Steels’ products (Q&T) is ongoing, the company said. The total investment amount is $74 million over three years, with production expected to start in 2027.
For the overall company, revenue was SEK 25.34 billion Swedish in the quarter, roughly even with SEK 25.52 billion a year earlier. Still, EBITDA rose to SEK 3.24 billion in the same comparison, up 37% from SEK 2.37 billion.
