Distributors who sell galvanized steel products to the construction and HVAC sectors see Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.’s announcement of a price increase this week as a positive sign the market’s slide may be nearing a bottom. The Cleveland-based steelmaker notified customers this week that it is shutting down a blast furnace and will raise prices for April […]
North Star BlueScope contributed substantially to record earnings reported yesterday by BlueScope Steel Ltd., its Australian parent. Sales for the first half of the global company’s 2022 fiscal year totaled $9.42 billion ($6.77 billion U.S.), netting earnings before interest and taxes of about $2.2 billion ($1.58 billion U.S.). For its North Star BlueScope operation in […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. will indefinitely idle the No. 4 blast furnace at its Indiana Harbor steelmaking campus in northwest Indiana. The Cleveland-based steelmaker also announced that it was raising prices for April orders of carbon hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated flat-rolled steel by at least $50 per ton ($2.50 per cwt). Cliffs will transfer hot metal production […]
U.S. Steel Corp. is beginning a search for a new chief financial officer after the resignation this week of Senior Vice President and CFO Christine S. Breves, who will continue to serve as Executive Vice President-Business Transformation while the company seeks her permanent replacement. “Christie’s deep knowledge of the industry, leadership and superb insight have […]
The Ontario government will contribute $500 million ($393 million U.S.) towards ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s $1.8 billion clean tech project to decrease its carbon intensity in steelmaking. The Hamilton-based steelmaker – a subsidiary of multinational ArcelorMittal SA – is working towards decreasing its greenhouse gas emissions by replacing its coal-fed coke ovens and blast furnaces with hydrogen-enabled […]
Ternium plans to invest $1 billion to expand the operations of its Pesquería flat steel facility in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The news came during the steelmaker’s fourth-quarter conference call on Wednesday, Feb. 16, when the Latin American steel group’s chief executive officer, Máximo Vedoya, confirmed the company was in the final stage of studying an […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. might shut a blast furnace this year, the company’s top executive said. “When we make a move, we make a move. … You might see a blast furnace going down for good still in 2022,” Cliffs Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said during a fireside chat at the Tampa Steel Conference this […]
Ternium reported net earnings of $1.136 billion in the fourth quarter 2021, down from $1.366 billion in the prior quarter, but a 31.4% boost from $865 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. The steelmaker achieved record profitability for the full year ended Dec. 31, 2021, with earnings totaling $4.367 billion, more than a five-fold […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. could join other steel producers in adding electric-arc furnace (EAF) capacity, the company’s top executive said. The Cleveland-based steelmaker is considering that because the cost of relining a blast furnace – and investing in the supply chains needed to feed it – are roughly the same as those for of building a new EAF. […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. posted a near-record profit in the fourth quarter and predicted that the good times would continue to roll into 2022 thanks to fixed-price contracts resetting at higher numbers. That prediction comes largely because automakers, which typically buy steel on contract terms, were forced to limit production in 2021 because of the global chip […]
Algoma Steel Group swung to a profit in its fiscal 2022 third quarter thanks to steel prices rising faster than raw material and energy costs. The Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based sheet and plate producer also said that construction was underway for its transition to electric-arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking. All told, the company recorded net income […]
ArcelorMittal recorded earnings of $4.05 billion in fourth-quarter 2021, besting the same year-ago quarter by more than threefold, despite lower shipment volumes, due to sharply higher steel prices. For the year, global earnings for the Luxembourg-based miner and steelmaker reached $14.97 billion, up from a loss of $733 million in 2020 despite a 9.0% decrease in […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is expected to take an approximately 80-90 day planned outage on the No. 5 blast furnace at its Cleveland Works starting in mid to late March, according to market participants. The outage is expected to last until roughly mid-June. It is not expected to impact customers because the Cleveland-based steelmaker can stock slabs […]
U.S. Steel Corp. has officially broken ground on the expansion of its Big River Steel electric-arc furnace (EAF) sheet mill in Osceola, Ark. The ceremony was attended by U.S. Steel President and CEO David Burritt as well as local and state officials. The project features an endless casting and rolling facility – the first of […]
Cleveland-Cliffs’ Ashland Works, once the lifeblood of four-generations of residents in the Kentucky community, is now a pile of rubble. The steel mill had operated for the better part of 100 years on the Ohio River. Its Amanda blast furnace was decomissioned in 2015. And the entire mill was permanently closed in 2019, shortly before Cleveland-Cliffs acquired […]
Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) has melted, cast and rolled the first coil at its new steel mill in Sinton, Texas. Employees of the Fort Wayne, Ind.-based steelmaker celebrated the occasion on social media platforms such as LinkedIn. The first coil both melted and rolled at Sinton was produced on Wednesday. SDI had previously been running […]
Nucor has closed its $400 million deal for a majority stake in California Steel Industries (CSI). “We are excited to officially welcome our CSI teammates to the broader Nucor family,” said Rex Query, Nucor’s Executive Vice President of Sheet and Tubular Products. “This joint venture gives us a strong presence in the Western region and grows our ability to produce […]
NLMK USA posted the best results on record in its fourth-quarter earnings, driven by historically high steel prices despite normalizing demand. The U.S. subsidiary of NLMK Group – Russia’s largest steelmaker – reported earnings of $373 million in Q4, up 5% sequentially and more than tripling the results seen during fourth-quarter 2020. Though U.S. sales […]
Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) swung to a net loss of $29.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 after posting a profit of $48.7 million in the prior quarter. The result was nonethless an improvement compared to the net loss of $1.121 billion posted by the Pittsburgh-based specialty materials producer in the fourth quarter of […]
Majestic Steel USA Inc. has hired Sean Madigan as Vice President of Sales, Manufacturing. Madigan joins Majestic from Nucor, where he served as the Sales and Marketing Manager for Nucor Steel Arkansas. Madigan’s experience with Nucor was integral to the startup of the company’s new coating line, and he will continue to be a critical part of the […]
Algoma Steel Group Inc. has awarded GE Gas Power (GE) the contract to upgrade its natural gas combined cycle power plant to support the power requirements of the steelmaker’s new electric arc furnace (EAF). The Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based steelmaker said the upgrade, which includes the installation of two gas turbine packages, is expected to […]
U.S. Steel has named Daniel R. Brown as Senior Vice President of Advanced Technology Steelmaking and Chief Operating Officer of its Big River Steel Works. Brown, who held the position of vice president at BRS, will not only lead the flat rolled steel production presently in place at BRS, but also the new minimill in Osceola, Ark., […]
Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) has closed its acquisition of a 45% stake in New Process Steel LP, a manufacturer and distributor that is also the company’s largest flat-rolled steel customer. The Fort Wayne, Ind.-based steelmaker announced the deal in mid-October. Terms were not disclosed. “This minority equity interest enables us to expand our exposure to […]
Nucor Corp. today announced plans to invest $290 million to upgrade its Crawfordsville, Ind., steel sheet mill. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker will expand the mill’s product capabilities by adding a 300,000 tons per year (tpy) construction-grade continuous galvanizing line and a 250,000 tpy prepaint line, the company said. The project, which company executives alluded to during […]
The North American operations of Evraz produced 1.88 million metric tons in 2021, an 18.9% improvement over 2020 despite some falloff near the end of the year, the company said in its Jan. 31 trading update. The Russia-based steelmaker reported fourth-quarter 2021 production of 480,000 metric tons in North America, a 2.2% decline from the […]
U.S. Steel isn’t letting current lower prices get it down after a record year in ’21 and in anticipation of more good times rolling into ‘22. The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker said it had expected the first quarter would be weaker but that such weakness would to be temporary. “Supply chain issues will ease, inflationary pressures will […]
Swedish steelmaker SSAB saw its best full-year earnings in company history in 2021 with all divisions posting record results thanks to high steel prices, the company said. SSAB Americas’ revenue was $6.153 billion Swedish krona ($650 million USD) in the fourth quarter of 2021, up 78% compared to the same year-ago quarter thanks to higher steel […]
U.S. Steel joined competitors Nucor Corp. and Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) in posting record annual profits. But the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker’s fourth-quarter net earnings were significantly lower than those in the third quarter. U.S. Steel recorded net earnings of $1.07 billion in the final quarter of 2021, down 46.5% from $2.00 billion in the third quarter […]
Nucor Corp. crushed annual profit records in 2021 and posted yet another quarterly profit record in the fourth quarter. The trend continues a 2021 pattern among domestic steelmakers of each quarter setting a record compared to that set in the prior quarter. All told, the Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker posted an annual profit of $6.83 billion […]
Calling 2021 “the safest and most profitable year in the company’s history,” Nucor executives sounded “a consistent drumbeat on demand” in their outlook for 2022 during their fourth-quarter conference call with analysts and investors today. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker posted record earnings of $6.83 billion in 2021 on sales of $36.5 billion. Sixteen of its […]