US-based
Nucor Corporation has announced its guidance for the second quarter ending July 4, 2015.
Nucor expects second quarter results to be in the range of $0.20 to $0.25 per diluted share. This range is a decrease from the second quarter of 2014 earnings of $0.46 per diluted share and is comparable to the first quarter of 2015 earnings of $0.21 per diluted share.
Overall operating performance at the steel mills segment in the second quarter of 2015 is expected to decrease compared to the previous quarter.
Nucor said that pricing has begun to stabilize, but the company experienced some margin erosion as the decrease in average sales prices during the quarter slightly outpaced the decrease in the average cost of raw materials consumed. Pricing remains under pressure from exceptionally high levels of imports that continue to flood the domestic market in the second quarter of 2015.
The ramp-up in production at the Louisiana direct reduced iron (DRI) facility has gone extremely well, with the facility operating near full capacity since mid-April. The raw materials segment performance is expected to benefit from improved performance of the scrap processing businesses. The performance of the DRI facility in Trinidad is expected to decrease in the second quarter of the current year compared to the previous quarter due to a 20-day planned outage that occurred during the second quarter.