Nucor's Customers Performance

The steel mills segment sells its products primarily to steel service centers, fabricators and manufacturers located throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and, increasingly, elsewhere in the world. Nucor produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized sheet steel in standard grades and to customers’ specifications while maintaining inventories to fulfill anticipated orders. We estimate that approximately 65% of our sheet steel sales were to contract customers. The balance of our sheet steel sales was made in the spot market at prevailing prices at the time of sale. The proportion of tons sold to contract customers at any given time depends on a variety of factors, including our consideration of current and future market conditions, our strategy to appropriately balance spot and contract tons to maximize profitability, our desire to sustain a diversified customer base, and our end-use customers’ perceptions about future market conditions. These sheet sales contracts permit price adjustments to reflect changes in prevailing raw material costs and market conditions. These sheet sales contracts typically have terms ranging from six to twelve months. Steel contract sales outside of our sheet operations are not significant.

Our plate, structural, reinforcing and merchant bar steel come in standard sizes and grades, which allows us to maintain inventory levels of these products to meet our customers’ expected orders. In addition, our bar mill group manufactures hot-rolled SBQ products to exacting specifications primarily servicing the automotive, energy, agricultural, heavy equipment and transportation sectors. Almost all of our plate, structural, and bar steel sales occur in the spot market at prevailing market prices.

Approximately 86% of the shipments made by our steel mills segment were to external customers. The balance of the steel mill segment’s shipments went to our piling distributor and our downstream joist, deck, rebar fabrication, fastener, metal buildings and cold finish operations.

In the steel products segment, we sell steel joists and joist girders, and steel deck to general contractors and fabricators located throughout the United States and Canada. We make these products to the customers’ specifications and do not maintain inventories of these finished steel products. The majority of these contracts are firm, fixed-price contracts that are in most cases competitively bid against other suppliers. Longer-term supply contracts may permit us to adjust our prices to reflect changes in prevailing raw materials costs. We sell fabricated reinforcing products only on a construction contract bid basis. These products are used by contractors in constructing highways, bridges, reservoirs, utilities, hospitals, schools, airports, stadiums and high-rise buildings. We manufacture cold finished steel, steel fasteners, steel grating, wire and wire mesh in standard sizes and maintain inventories of these products to fulfill anticipated orders. We sell cold finished steel and steel fasteners primarily to distributors and manufacturers located throughout the United States and Canada.
We market products from the steel mills and steel products segments mainly through in-house sales forces. We also utilize our internal trading companies to market our products abroad. The markets for these products are largely tied to capital and durable goods spending and are affected by changes in general economic conditions.

In the raw materials segment, we process ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal for use in our steel mills and for sale to various domestic and international external customers. We also broker ferrous and nonferrous metals and scrap substitutes, supply ferro-alloys, and provide transportation, material handling and other services to users of scrap metals. Our primary external customers for ferrous scrap are electric arc furnace 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. We market scrap metal products and related services to our external customers through in-house sales forces. Approximately 13% of the ferrous and nonferrous metals and scrap substitutes tons we processed were sold to external customers. We used the balance in our steel mills.

Also within the raw materials segment are our DRI plants in Trinidad and Louisiana that produce iron inputs exclusively for use in the Nucor mills, as well as our working interest drilling programs. All natural gas produced by the working interest drilling programs is and will be sold to outside parties, and as a result the revenues from these sales are a small but increasing amount of our revenues.

The steel mills segment sells its products primarily to steel service centers, fabricators and manufacturers located throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and, increasingly, elsewhere in the world. Nucor produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized sheet steel in standard grades and to customers’ specifications while maintaining inventories to fulfill anticipated orders. We estimate that approximately 65% of our sheet steel sales were to contract customers. The balance of our sheet steel sales was made in the spot market at prevailing prices at the time of sale. The proportion of tons sold to contract customers at any given time depends on a variety of factors, including our consideration of current and future market conditions, our strategy to appropriately balance spot and contract tons to maximize profitability, our desire to sustain a diversified customer base, and our end-use customers’ perceptions about future market conditions. These sheet sales contracts permit price adjustments to reflect changes in prevailing raw material costs and market conditions. These sheet sales contracts typically have terms ranging from six to twelve months. Steel contract sales outside of our sheet operations are not significant.

Our plate, structural, reinforcing and merchant bar steel come in standard sizes and grades, which allows us to maintain inventory levels of these products to meet our customers’ expected orders. In addition, our bar mill group manufactures hot-rolled SBQ products to exacting specifications primarily servicing the automotive, energy, agricultural, heavy equipment and transportation sectors. Almost all of our plate, structural, and bar steel sales occur in the spot market at prevailing market prices.

Approximately 86% of the shipments made by our steel mills segment were to external customers. The balance of the steel mill segment’s shipments went to our piling distributor and our downstream joist, deck, rebar fabrication, fastener, metal buildings and cold finish operations.

In the steel products segment, we sell steel joists and joist girders, and steel deck to general contractors and fabricators located throughout the United States and Canada. We make these products to the customers’ specifications and do not maintain inventories of these finished steel products. The majority of these contracts are firm, fixed-price contracts that are in most cases competitively bid against other suppliers. Longer-term supply contracts may permit us to adjust our prices to reflect changes in prevailing raw materials costs. We sell fabricated reinforcing products only on a construction contract bid basis. These products are used by contractors in constructing highways, bridges, reservoirs, utilities, hospitals, schools, airports, stadiums and high-rise buildings. We manufacture cold finished steel, steel fasteners, steel grating, wire and wire mesh in standard sizes and maintain inventories of these products to fulfill anticipated orders. We sell cold finished steel and steel fasteners primarily to distributors and manufacturers located throughout the United States and Canada.
We market products from the steel mills and steel products segments mainly through in-house sales forces. We also utilize our internal trading companies to market our products abroad. The markets for these products are largely tied to capital and durable goods spending and are affected by changes in general economic conditions.

In the raw materials segment, we process ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal for use in our steel mills and for sale to various domestic and international external customers. We also broker ferrous and nonferrous metals and scrap substitutes, supply ferro-alloys, and provide transportation, material handling and other services to users of scrap metals. Our primary external customers for ferrous scrap are electric arc furnace 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. We market scrap metal products and related services to our external customers through in-house sales forces. Approximately 13% of the ferrous and nonferrous metals and scrap substitutes tons we processed were sold to external customers. We used the balance in our steel mills.

Also within the raw materials segment are our DRI plants in Trinidad and Louisiana that produce iron inputs exclusively for use in the Nucor mills, as well as our working interest drilling programs. All natural gas produced by the working interest drilling programs is and will be sold to outside parties, and as a result the revenues from these sales are a small but increasing amount of our revenues.