Steel Dynamics sees ‘strong’ domestic steel consumption in 2024

“We remain confident that market conditions are in place for domestic steel consumption to be strong throughout 2024,” said CEO Millett. “Order entry activity continues to be solid across all of our businesses and steel pricing has firmed. We believe North American steel consumption will increase in 2024, and that demand for lower-carbon emission, U.S. produced steel products coupled with lower imports will support steel pricing. We believe the automotive, non-residential construction, industrial, and energy sectors will remain solid this year. The continued onshoring of manufacturing businesses, combined with the expectation of significant fixed asset investment to be derived from public funding related to the U.S. Infrastructure, Inflation Reduction Act, and Department of Energy programs, will competitively position the domestic steel industry. We believe this will benefit all of our operating platforms, especially our steel and steel fabrication businesses. We have successfully started commissioning and operating our four new value-added flat rolled steel coating lines. The teams have produced prime quality galvanized and painted products on the first two lines in record times. We expect to begin benefitting from the additional 1.1 million tons of value-added steel products beginning in the second quarter of this year and fully in 2025. We are also quickly progressing on our aluminum flat rolled products mill and are incredibly excited about this meaningful growth opportunity, which is aligned with our existing business and operational expertise,” said Millett. “We plan to begin operating the aluminum flat rolled mill mid-2025. We have intentionally grown with our customers’ needs, providing efficient sustainable supply-chain solutions for the highest quality products. Thus far, this has primarily been achieved within the steel industry – however, a significant number of our flat rolled steel customers are also consumers and processors of aluminum flat rolled products. We are pleased to further diversify our end markets with plans to supply aluminum flat rolled products with high recycled content to the countercyclical sustainable beverage can and packaging industry, in addition to the automotive, industrial, and construction sectors. We believe our unique performance-based operating culture, coupled with our considerable experience in successfully constructing and operating cost-effective, highly profitable flat rolled steel mills, positions us exceptionally well to execute this strategic opportunity and to deliver strong long-term value creation. Our customers and our people are also incredibly excited for this growth opportunity. Our commitment is to the health and safety of our teams, families, and communities, while meeting the current and future needs of our customers. Our culture and business model continue to positively differentiate our performance from the rest of the industry. We are competitively positioned and focused to generate long-term sustainable value,” concluded Millett.