AK Steel announced Friday that it expects a loss for its first quarter, attributing temporary factors such as an unplanned blast furnace outage. Harsh winter weather--the main complaint for other US mills--was also mentioned as a factor.
The company forecasts a loss of 44 cents to 49 cents a share for Q1 2014, in contrast to previous expectations for a profit of 5 cents a share. The unplanned outage at AK’s Ashland Works is expected to result in shipments being down 10-12 percent from the previous quarter. However, the company predicts average selling prices for the quarter to reflect an increase of 6 percent from Q4 2013.