United States Steel Corporation reported Wednesday a third quarter 2015 net loss of $173 million, or $1.18 per diluted share, which included a $53 million, or $0.36 per diluted share, loss on the previously announced shutdown of the blast furnace and associated steelmaking operations, along with most of the flat-rolled finishing operations at Fairfield Works, and does not include the slab and rounds casters and the #5 coating line (Fairfield Flat-Rolled Operations). Other losses included a charge of $10 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, for a pension obligation related to
US Steel Canada Inc. (USSC).
Commenting on results,
US Steel President and Chief Executive Officer Mario Longhi said, "Total segment EBIT improved as compared to the second quarter as we continued to take action to address our cost structure. We remain focused on our Carnegie Way transformation efforts to weather the continued difficult market environment. These efforts will better position our Company to generate stronger operating margins and respond to changing market conditions.”
Commenting on
US Steel's outlook for 2015, Longhi said, “We remain committed to the execution of our long-term strategy. We continue to focus on the factors that we can control and are making excellent progress on our Carnegie Way transformation efforts. Commercial markets are not improving as we had anticipated for the second half of 2015. Steel selling prices reversed direction as excessively high levels of imports, much of which we believe are unfairly traded, and a significant decline in steel scrap prices caused spot prices to reach new lows for the year. High import levels also had a negative impact on the rebalancing of supply chain inventories, decreasing customer order rates in the second half of the year. The market for oil country tubular goods has continued to deteriorate, impacting results in both our Flat-Rolled and Tubular segments. Based on these factors, we expect significantly lower shipments and average realized prices than we previously projected for full-year 2015. Our cost reduction efforts and increasing Carnegie Way benefits are not yet able to fully mitigate the unfavorable commercial impacts and we now expect our full-year adjusted earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to be approximately $225 million.”