Nucor Profile
Nucor Corporation and its affiliates (Nucor) manufacture steel and steel products.
The company also produces and procures ferrous and non-ferrous materials primarily for use in its steel manufacturing business. Most of the company's operating facilities and customers are located in North America. The company's operations include international trading and sales companies that buy and sell steel and steel products manufactured by the company and others.
Nucor is North America's largest recycler, using scrap steel as the primary raw material in producing steel and steel products. In 2023, the company recycled approximately 18.4 million gross tons of scrap steel.
Segments, Principal Products Produced, and Markets and Marketing
Nucor reports its results in three segments: Steel Mills, Steel Products, and Raw Materials. The Steel Mills segment is Nucor's largest segment, representing 58% of the company's sales to external customers in the year ended December 31, 2023.
The company markets products from the steel mills and steel products segments mainly through in-house sales forces. The company also utilizes its internal distribution and trading companies to market the company's products abroad. The markets for these products are largely tied to end-use markets, such as nonresidential construction, durable goods and capital spending that are affected by changes in general economic conditions.
The company is a leading domestic provider for most of the products the company supplies, and in many cases (e.g., structural steel, merchant bar steel, steel joist and deck, pre-engineered metal buildings, steel piling, cold finish bar steel, steel electrical conduit pipe and insulated metal panels), the company is the leading supplier.
The company has examined and prioritized growth opportunities across its core steelmaking, steel products and raw materials operations. The company has identified and executed on several acquisitions and investments to expand the products and services the company offers beyond its traditional capabilities. The Expand Beyond growth opportunities the company is pursuing leverage its core competency as a highly efficient, industrial manufacturer working primarily with steel and steel products.
Steel Mills segment
In the Steel Mills segment, Nucor produces sheet steel (hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized), plate steel, structural steel (wide-flange beams, beam blanks, H-piling and sheet piling) and bar steel (blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing bar, merchant bar and engineered special bar quality ('SBQ')). Nucor manufactures steel principally from scrap steel and scrap steel substitutes using electric arc furnaces ('EAFs') along with continuous casting and automated rolling mills. The Steel Mills segment also includes Nucor's equity method investment in NuMit LLC ('NuMit'), as well as international trading and distribution companies that buy and sell steel manufactured by the company and other steel producers.
The Steel Mills segment sells its products primarily to steel service centers, fabricators and manufacturers located throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Steel Mills segment sold approximately 18,552,000 tons to outside customers in 2023. In 2023, 80% of the shipments made by the company's Steel Mills segment were to external customers. The remaining 20% of the Steel Mills segment's shipments went to the company's Steel Products segment.
Bar mills - Nucor has 15 bar mills located across the United States that manufacture a broad range of products, including concrete reinforcing bars, hot-rolled bars, rounds, light shapes, structural angles, channels, wire rod and highway products in carbon and alloy steels. Four of the bar mills have a significant focus on manufacturing SBQ and wire rod products.
Steel produced by the company's bar mills has a wide usage serving end markets, including the agricultural, automotive, construction, energy, furniture, machinery, metal building, railroad, recreational equipment, shipbuilding, heavy truck and trailer market segments. Considering Nucor's production capabilities and the mix of bar products generally produced and marketed, the capacity of the bar mills is estimated at approximately 9,560,000 tons per year.
Reinforcing and merchant bar steel are sold in standard sizes and grades, which allows the company to maintain inventory levels of these products to meet the company's customers' expected orders. The company's SBQ products are hot-rolled to exacting specifications primarily servicing the automotive, energy, agricultural, heavy equipment and transportation sectors.
In April 2022, Nucor announced that it will build a new rebar micro mill, with spooling capabilities, in Lexington, North Carolina. The new micro mill is under construction.
Sheet mills - Nucor operates six sheet mills that produce flat-rolled steel for automotive, appliance, construction, pipe and tube and many other industrial and consumer applications. Included in the company's six sheet mills is California Steel Industries, Inc., in which Nucor has a 51% controlling ownership position. Considering Nucor's production capabilities and the mix of flat-rolled products generally produced and marketed, the capacity of the sheet mills is estimated at approximately 14,600,000 tons per year. All of the company's sheet mills are equipped with galvanizing lines and four of them are equipped with cold rolling mills for further processing of hot-rolled sheet steel.
Nucor produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized sheet steel to customers' specifications. Contract sales within the steel mills segment are most notable in the company's sheet operations, as it is common for contract sales to account for the majority of sheet sales in a given year. The company estimates that greater than 80% of the company's sheet steel sales in 2023 were to contract customers.
Nucor owns a 51% controlling economic and voting interest in Nucor-JFE Steel Mexico, S. de R.L. de C.V. ('NJSM'). NJSM is a joint venture with JFE Steel Corporation ('JFE') of Japan that operates a galvanized sheet steel plant in central Mexico with an annual capacity of approximately 400,000 tons, that is expected to supply the country's automotive market.
In January 2022, Nucor announced it had selected Mason County, West Virginia as the site for its new 3-million-ton state-of-the-art sheet mill. When operational, the new mill will be equipped to produce 84-inch sheet products, and among other features, will include a 76-inch tandem cold mill and two galvanizing lines capable of producing advanced high-end automotive and construction grades.
Structural mills - Nucor operates two structural mills that produce wide-flange steel beams, pilings and heavy structural steel products for fabricators, construction companies, manufacturers and steel service centers. Nucor owns a 51% interest in Nucor-Yamato Steel Company (Limited Partnership) ('Nucor-Yamato') located in Blytheville, Arkansas. Nucor-Yamato is the only North American producer of high-strength, low-alloy beams. Common applications for the high-strength, low-alloy beams include gravity columns for high-rise buildings, long-span trusses for stadiums and convention centers, and for use in all projects where seismic design is a critical factor. The benefits of high-strength, low-alloy beams are increasingly recognized by Nucor's customers in the construction sector. These include savings in terms of construction time, weight, space, and overall environmental impact. Nucor sells its high-strength, low-alloy beams under the trade name AEOS.
Nucor also owns a steel beam mill in Berkeley County, South Carolina. Considering Nucor's production capabilities and the mix of structural products generally produced and marketed, the capacity of the two structural mills is estimated at approximately 3,250,000 tons per year.
Structural steel products come in standard sizes and grades, which allows the company to maintain inventory levels of these products to meet the company's customers' expected orders.
Plate mills - Nucor operates three plate mills that produce plate for manufacturers of barges, bridges, heavy equipment, rail cars, refinery tanks, ships, wind towers and other items. The company's products are further used in the pipe and tube, pressure vessel, transportation and construction industries. Considering Nucor's production capabilities and the mix of plate products generally produced and marketed, the capacity of the plate mills is estimated at approximately 4,000,000 tons per year.
Plate steel products come in standard sizes and grades, which allows the company to maintain inventory levels of these products to meet the company's customers' expected orders.
Steel joint venture - Nucor owns a 50% economic and voting interest in NuMit, a company that owns 100% of the equity interest in Steel Technologies LLC ('Steel Technologies'), an operator of 30 strategically located sheet processing facilities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Steel Technologies transforms flat-rolled steel into products that meet exacting specifications for customers in a wide range of industries, including the automotive, agricultural and consumer goods markets.
Steel Products segment
In the Steel Products segment, Nucor produces steel joists and joist girders, steel deck, galvanized torque tubes used in solar arrays, hollow structural section ('HSS') steel tubing, electrical conduit, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel, cold finished steel, steel fasteners, steel grating and expanded metal, wire and wire mesh, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel racking, overhead doors, and utility towers and structures for communications and energy transmission. The Steel Products segment also includes the company's piling distributor.
Except for the company's overhead doors business, which at present is focused primarily on the garage door repair and replacement market, the company's steel products businesses primarily serve the nonresidential construction and infrastructure markets.
Vulcraft/Verco - The Vulcraft/Verco group is the nation's leading producer of open-web steel joists, joist girders and steel decking, which are used primarily for nonresidential building construction. Steel joists and joist girders are produced and marketed throughout the United States by seven domestic Vulcraft facilities. The Vulcraft/Verco group's steel decking is produced and marketed throughout the United States by nine domestic plants. Six of these plants are adjacent to Vulcraft joist facilities. The Vulcraft/Verco group also has two plants in Canada-one in Eastern Canada and one in Western Canada-that produce both joist and deck. The annual joist production capacity is approximately 745,000 tons and the annual deck production capacity is approximately 560,000 tons.
Sales of steel joists, joist girders and steel decking are dependent on the nonresidential building construction market. The majority of steel joists, joist girders and steel decking are used extensively as part of the roof and floor structural support systems in warehouses, data centers, manufacturing buildings, retail stores, shopping centers, schools, hospitals, and, to a lesser extent, in multi-story buildings and apartments. The company makes these products to the company's customers' specifications and typically deliver them directly to a construction site according to a prearranged schedule and sequence. The majority of these contracts are firm, fixed-price contracts that are, in most cases, competitively bid against other suppliers.
The company's Vulcraft/Verco group also manufactures and fabricates steel bar grating products at four of its facilities and serves the new construction and maintenance-related markets. The annual production capacity for the company's grating business is approximately 49,000 tons.
Tubular products - The Nucor Tubular Products ('NTP') group has eight tubular facilities that are located in close proximity to Nucor's sheet mills. The NTP group produces HSS steel tubing, mechanical steel tubing, galvanized solar torque tube, piling, sprinkler pipe, heat-treated tubing and electrical conduit. HSS steel tubing, mechanical steel tubing and sprinkler pipe are used in structural and mechanical applications, including nonresidential construction, infrastructure, agricultural, automotive and construction equipment end-use markets. Heat-treated tubing and electrical conduit are primarily used to protect and route electrical wiring in various nonresidential structures, such as hospitals, schools, office buildings, hotels, stadiums and shopping malls. Solar torque tube is an essential component for ground-mount solar systems.
Rebar fabrication - Nucor Rebar Fabrication fabricates, installs and distributes rebar for a wide variety of construction work classified as infrastructure (e.g., highways, bridges, reservoirs, utilities and airports) and various building projects, including manufacturing facilities, warehouses, data centers, hospitals, schools, stadiums, commercial office buildings and multi-tenant residential construction. The company sells and installs fabricated reinforcing products primarily on a construction contract bid basis.
Reinforcing products are essential to concrete construction. They supply tensile strength, as well as additional compressive strength, and protect concrete from cracking. In many markets, Nucor Rebar Fabrication sells reinforcing products on an installed basis (i.e., Nucor Rebar Fabrication fabricates the reinforcing products for a specific application and performs the installation). Nucor Rebar Fabrication operates nearly 70 fabrication facilities across the United States and Canada, with each facility serving a local market. Total annual rebar fabrication capacity is approximately 1,736,000 tons.
Piling products - Skyline Steel LLC and its subsidiaries ('Skyline') are primarily steel foundation distributors serving the North American market. Skyline distributes products to service marine construction, bridge and highway construction, heavy civil construction, flood protection, underground commercial parking and environmental containment projects in the infrastructure and construction industries. Skyline also manufactures a complete line of geostructural foundation solutions, including threaded bar, micropile, strand anchors and hollow bar. It also processes and fabricates spiral weld pipe piling, rolled and welded pipe piling, and cold-formed sheet piling.
Cold finish - Nucor Cold Finish ('NCF') is the largest and most diversified producer of cold finished bar products for a wide range of industrial markets in North America, with assets in Canada, Mexico and throughout the United States. The total capacity of the Nucor cold finished bar and wire facilities is approximately 1,069,000 tons per year.
Nucor's cold finished facilities produce cold finished bars for demanding applications. NCF obtains most of its steel from the Nucor bar mills, ensuring consistent quality and supply through all market conditions. These facilities produce cold-drawn, turned, ground and polished steel bars that are used extensively for shafting and other precision machined applications. NCF produces rounds, hexagons, flats and squares in carbon, alloy and leaded steels. These bars are purchased by the appliance, automotive, construction equipment, electric motor, farm machinery and fluid power industries, as well as by service centers. NCF bars are used in tens of thousands of products. A few examples include anchor bolts, hydraulic cylinders and shafting for air conditioner compressors, ceiling fan motors, garage door openers, electric motors and lawn mowers.
Nucor owns a fully integrated precision castings company, Corporacion POK, S.A. de C.V. ('POK'), with a facility in Guadalajara, Mexico. POK produces complex castings and precision machined products used by the oil and gas, mining and sugar processing industries. POK produces a wide array of precision castings using steel, bronze, iron and specialty alloys. POK complements NCF's businesses and Nucor's cold finish facility in Monterrey, Mexico.
Steel mesh and fasteners - Nucor manufactures wire products and industrial fasteners.
Nucor produces mesh at Nucor Steel Connecticut, Inc. and Nucor Wire Products Utah. Nucor also produces mesh in Canada at the Harris Steel Group, Inc. ('Harris') operations of Laurel Steel.
Nucor Fastener's bolt-making facility in Indiana produces carbon and alloy steel hex head cap screws, hex bolts, structural bolts, nuts and washers, finished hex nuts and custom-engineered fasteners. Nucor fasteners are used in a broad range of markets, including automotive, machine tool, farm implement, construction and military applications.
Buildings group - The Nucor Buildings group is the nation's leading supplier of pre-engineered metal buildings. Nucor produces metal buildings and components throughout the United States under the following brands: Nucor Building Systems, American Buildings Company and Kirby Building Systems.
The sizes of the buildings that can be produced range from less than 1,000 square feet to more than 1,000,000 square feet. Complete metal building packages can be customized and combined with other materials, such as glass, wood and masonry to produce cost-effective, energy efficient, aesthetically pleasing buildings designed to the customers' special requirements. The buildings are sold primarily through independent builder distribution networks in order to provide fast-track, customized solutions for building owners. The primary markets served are commercial, industrial and institutional buildings, including distribution centers, data centers, automobile dealerships, retail centers, schools and manufacturing facilities.
Insulated metal panels ('IMP') - The Nucor Insulated Panels Group, which includes industry leading brands, CENTRIA and Metl-Span, broadens the value-added solutions that the Nucor Buildings group can provide to targeted end markets such as warehousing, distribution and data centers. The company expects these end-use markets to continue to grow in the coming years. IMPs facilitate cost-effective climate control in the built environment and reduce energy usage and overall operations related greenhouse gas ('GHG') emissions for owners and lessees.
Warehouse Systems - Nucor Warehouse Systems ('NWS') produces and installs custom designed steel racking systems for a variety of applications, including data centers and warehouses.
Overhead doors - In June 2022, Nucor acquired C.H.I. Overhead Doors, LLC ('CHI'), a leading manufacturer of overhead doors for residential and commercial markets in the United States and Canada. By leveraging Nucor's existing sales channels into the broader nonresidential construction market the company can facilitate CHI's continuing growth. CHI has two manufacturing locations.
Towers & Structures - In August 2022, Nucor acquired Summit Utility Structures LLC and a related company, Sovereign Steel Manufacturing LLC. These companies form Nucor Towers & Structures ('NTS'). NTS produces metal poles and other steel structures for utility infrastructure and highway signage.
In 2023, Nucor announced it will build two new manufacturing locations to expand NTS adjacent to Nucor's existing steel mills in Decatur, Alabama and Crawfordsville, Indiana.
Raw Materials segment
In the Raw Materials segment, Nucor produces DRI and, through the company's DJJ subsidiary, brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, HBI and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal. The Raw Materials segment also includes the company's natural gas production operations and the company's industrial gas business, Universal Industrial Gases. Nucor's raw materials investments are focused on creating an advantage for its steelmaking operations, through a global information network and a multi-pronged and flexible approach to raw materials supply.
Scrap recycling and brokerage operations - DJJ operates six regional scrap recycling companies across the United States that together have shredders capable of processing approximately 5,878,000 tons of ferrous scrap annually. DJJ's scrap recycling operations use expertise and technology to maximize metal recovery and minimize waste.
DJJ is the leading broker of ferrous scrap in North America and is a global trader of scrap metal, pig iron and other metallics. In addition to sourcing steel scrap for Nucor's mills, DJJ is a global trader of ferro-alloys and nonferrous metals. DJJ's logistics team owns and operates one of the largest independent fleets of railcars in the United States dedicated to the movement of scrap and steel and also offers railcar leasing and railcar fleet management services. These activities have value to Nucor as the leading and most diversified North American steel producer.
The company's primary external customers for ferrous scrap are EAF steel mills and foundries that use ferrous scrap as a raw material in their manufacturing process. External customers purchasing nonferrous scrap metal include aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills, and other processors and consumers of various nonferrous metals. The company markets scrap metal products and related services to its external customers through in-house sales forces. In 2023, approximately 8% of the ferrous and nonferrous metals and scrap substitute tons the company brokered and processed were sold to external customers. The company consumed the balance in its steel mills.
Direct reduced iron operations - DRI is a substitute material for high-quality grades of scrap and pig iron. Nucor operates two DRI plants which supplied approximately 3,350,000 metric tons of material with world-class metallization rates and carbon content to the company's steel mills in 2023. Nucor's wholly owned subsidiary, Nu-Iron Unlimited, is located in Trinidad and benefits from a low-cost supply of natural gas and favorable logistics for inbound iron ore and shipment of DRI to the United States. Nucor's second DRI plant in Louisiana also benefits from favorable logistics and proximity to its steel mill customers.
Nucor's DRI production and brokering capabilities provide the company's steel mills flexibility to quickly adjust their metallic input mix to changing market conditions, enabling them to maintain competitiveness in the often-volatile ferrous scrap market. With the potential for high-quality scrap to become scarcer, coupled with the risk of third-party supplier disruptions, Nucor's DRI facilities provide a greater degree of certainty over metallics supply to its steel mills.
Natural gas production programs - Nucor owns operating wells and leasehold interests in natural gas properties in the South Piceance Basin in the Western Slope of Colorado.
Nucor's access to a long-term, low-cost supply of natural gas is a component in the execution of Nucor's raw material strategy. Natural gas produced by Nucor's production operations is sold to third parties to partially offset the company's exposure to changes in the price of natural gas consumed by the company's DRI plant in Louisiana and its steel mills in the United States.
Process Gases - Universal Industrial Gases ('UIG') provides the capability to build and operate the company's own air separation units to serve its steel mills, providing the company with an alternative to long term service contracts with outside providers. Where economies of scale and regional market conditions warrant, the company can also sell excess output from these plants on a merchant basis. As of December 31, 2023, Nucor had six industrial gas plants operating, and eight others at various stages of commissioning, construction, or planning.
Customers and Markets
Nonresidential construction is the largest end-use market that the company serves. Products from the company's steel mills and steel products segments are used in a variety of nonresidential construction applications (e.g., commercial, industrial and infrastructure).
The company has developed branded product lines to leverage this, and other advantages conferred by the company's specialized capabilities:
The company's AEOS line of high-strength, low-alloy steel beams is one such example. AEOS's benefits are increasingly recognized by Nucor's customers in the construction sector. These include savings in terms of construction time, weight, space and overall environmental impact.
The company's ECONIQ line of net zero carbon steel is another example. The company launched ECONIQ during 2021 and have found interest from customers in both the automotive and construction end-use markets. These are the two largest end-use markets for steel in the United States.
The company's Elcyon line of sustainable heavy gauge steel plate product will be made specifically for America's wind energy producers. The company launched Elcyon in January 2023 and plan to manufacture this product at the company's new plate mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky.
The company has also invested in people and processes to organize more of the company's commercial activities around large customers and end-use markets (e.g., automotive, construction, wind energy and solar energy). The company has developed dedicated teams tasked with developing relationships and educating decision makers in these sectors.
Government Regulations
In addition to the requirements of the state and local governments of the communities in which the company operates, the company must comply with federal health and safety regulations and environmental regulations, the most significant of which are enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ('OSHA') and the Environmental Protection Agency ('EPA'). Safety and environmental stewardship are important values to Nucor.
The principal federal environmental laws that regulate the company's business include the Clean Air Act (the 'CAA'), which regulates air emissions; the Clean Water Act (the 'CWA'), which regulates water withdrawals and discharges; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (the 'RCRA'), which addresses solid and hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal; and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (the 'CERCLA'), which governs releases of hazardous substances, and remediation of contaminated sites. The company's operations are also subject to state and local environmental laws and regulations.
History
Nucor Corporation was founded in 1905. The company, a Delaware corporation, was incorporated in 1958.
