On Monday, April 18, Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Steel Dynamics, Inc. (SDI) reported a net income of $106 million in Q1 2011 on net sales of $2 billion. Q1 2011's net income represents a big jump from Q4 2010 net income of $8 million, and Q1 2010 net income of $65 million.
In commenting on the Q1 2011 results, Keith Busse, Chairman and CEO of SDI said, "Our Engineered Bar Products and Flat Roll divisions continue to operate at essentially full capacity. Engineered Bar has maintained its extended order backlog for special-bar-quality steel as demand remains strong. We are currently planning a 10-day outage at Engineered Bar in April for scheduled maintenance; however, we do not believe this will meaningfully impact second quarter shipments. Sheet steel demand also continues to be strong as we enter the second quarter."
In Q1 2011, steel shipments were 1.5 million net tons (nt), up 4 percent from Q1 2010, and up 10 percent over Q4 2010. Additionally, net sales in SDI's steel operations segment were $1.3 billion compared to net sales of $979 million in Q4 2010. The average external steel selling price in Q1 was $890/nt, up $137/nt from the Q4 2010 average of $753/nt.