United States Steel Corporation reported a full-year 2019 net loss of $642 million, compared to full-year 2018 net earnings of $1.11 billion. For the fourth quarter, the company reported a net loss of $680 million, compared to fourth quarter 2018 net earnings of $592 million.
Net sales in 2019 totaled $12.9 billion, compared to $14.2 billion in 2018. Net sales in Q4 2019 totaled $2.82 billion, compared to $3.69 billion in Q4 2018.
Steel shipments in 2019 totaled 15,059,000 net tons, compared to 15,747,000 nt in 2018. Steel shipments in Q4 2019 totaled 3,467,000 nt, compared to 4,022,000 nt in Q4 2018.
US Steel President and Chief Executive Officer David B. Burritt commented, “We will take another step towards our world-competitive, 'best of both' strategy this year as we complete two important strategic projects … the electric arc furnace at Tubular and our XG3 AHSS investment at our PRO-TEC joint venture. These projects will be yet another proof point to the market that our strategy will deliver cost and capability differentiation that is valuable to our customers, stockholders and employees. I have never been more confident in our strategy and that our investments in Big River and Endless Casting and Rolling are the right priorities."
The company currently expects the first quarter of 2020 to be the trough for the year due to the normal seasonality of mining operations and lower first quarter shipments in the flat-rolled segment as the company prepares for the April blast furnace outage at Gary Works. Additionally, Big River Steel expects their full-year 2020 depreciation and amortization expense and net interest costs to be approximately $150 million and approximately $95 million, respectively.