Timna Tanners: Okay, that’s super helpful. Thank you for the color. I guess one quick one, if I could add. I know there was a question already about Brandenburg run rate, but I was just wondering, is there still more room to see Gallatin on an annualized basis ramp up? Or is it already pretty fully running out those to the expansion? Thanks again.
Leon Topalian: Sorry, was your question on Gallatin’s ramp-up?
Timna Tanners: Yes, the status of that, if you could, please?
Leon Topalian: Okay. Yes, I’ll provide some of – high level. What I would tell you in the last 3 or 4 months of 2023, the team has executed incredibly well. We have seen daily, weekly, monthly production records set at that facility. They are – have realized the full run rate potential of that mill and now are operating at an extremely high level. So, they have turned – more than turned in the quarter and again, are producing at or near run rate capabilities, and we will continue that as we move into 2024.
Timna Tanners: Okay. Thanks again. Appreciate it.
Leon Topalian: Thanks.
Operator: The next question comes from Bill Peterson with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Bill Peterson: Yes. Hi. Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. So, I guess first, in the plate market, I guess what are your views on the plate market given the step-up in service center inventories we saw in December and the year-on-year decline in shipments despite Brandenburg’s ramp? And I guess following up on that Brandenburg sort of ramp commentary, when can we expect to see Brandenburg turn profitable this year?
Al Behr: Yes. Thanks Bill. This is Al Behr again, I will comment on the plates stuff. We did have an increase year-over-year in shipments by 11% and part of that is, of course, Brandenburg. But just speaking about the plate market overall, I would say we are reasonably optimistic. I mean there is areas of weakness that get some headlines and higher interest rates, are a compressive force when it comes to vertical construction where plate is used. But there is plenty of bright spots in other areas like power transmission and railcar manufacturing. Heavy equipment is still strong. It’s probably declining, but it’s still strong and a good pull-through for us. So – and then of course, you have got the bridge and highway tons that are mostly yet to come, and that will come for years in the future.
So, our Skyline business that Brad mentioned pulls a lot of plate tons through almost all of their work is infrastructure related, not just bridge and highway, but many other types of projects. So, our view is not that the plate market is going to be wildly robust, but it’s going to remain pretty steady and has plenty of tailwinds to offset some of the other forces working against us.
Bill Peterson: And on the Brandenburg profitability timeline.
Al Behr: I would expect we hit a run rate of breakeven sometime in the middle of the year.
Bill Peterson: Okay. Thanks for that. Second question is a little bit longer dated, longer focused. But in the last earnings presentation, there has been certainly less on the decarbonization efforts. But with the team having many multi-faceted approach across biocarbon and green pig iron, the CCS program you mentioned, power generation, zero emission iron and so forth. I guess are any of these showing up in 2024 within your investments in CapEx, for example, the CCS program that you have planned for ‘26? I guess how should we think about these programs in terms of what’s leading and how they flow through over the next several years?
Leon Topalian: Yes. Look, I will begin and Greg Murphy, our EVP in Business Services and Sustainability can jump in as well. But from a high level, look, it’s a great question. One of the beautiful things about Nucor and our positioning is this, one of the top five recyclers in the world and certainly the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Our EAF steelmaking technology means that we don’t have to take the billions and billions and billions of dollars of profit we are making in pivot in transition from the old style integrated facilities. You are seeing headlines around the world companies in Europe that are – have made the pledge to 100% switch to EAF steelmaking technologies because they have no choice. The question in my mind isn’t about and if.
This nation is going to move to a greener, more sustainable platform as we rebuild, restore and continue to grow the digital economy. The real question in my mind is the pace in which we changed, do we have the infrastructure, do we have the grid hardening, do we have the resources across the United States to be able to effectively help the EV users power their cars at homes and everything else. But it’s a long-winded way to get to the answer of your question is if you think about the PPAs that were part of, you think about some of these investment projects, the Louisiana partnership in Exxon, they didn’t cost us anything because of the strength of our balance sheet, the strength of Nucor’s leadership position, it wasn’t a huge outlay of cash, if you think about some of the other investments that are smaller in size.
So, they are not – there are tens of millions rather than hundreds of billions. It’s positioning ourselves and finding partners out there that are doing different things with carbon and biochar. We are looking at technologies in Europe that are producing pig iron at or near net zero embodied carbon. So, there is a number of things that we are examining that are not at this point, large scale from a CapEx standpoint. Greg, anything you would add to that?
Greg Murphy: Yes. I guess on the timing issue, we see the Louisiana project beginning to pay dividends probably in 2025. But as Leon said, that is not at all a capital-intensive investment for Nucor. We were able to structure that as an over defense solution, working with a partner who really understands the geology and the petrochemical attributes there in ExxonMobil. And with the 45Q tax credit, that has proven to be a financial winner for Nucor really from beginning to end. And a lot of the other strategies that we will deploy as an EAF producer go to things like our source and supply of raw materials and how we can get lower in body carbon raw materials, how we can use obsolete scrap and extract some of the tramp elements from that and use that to replace things like pig iron.
So, from a capital intensity standpoint, Leon nailed it. We are in a well-positioned place. And really, what we are trying to do is to take a world-class level and make it even better. And we are very, very excited. The last thing I would mention is Scope 2 emissions, that’s a big opportunity for Nucor. You have seen us make investments in both nuclear division [ph] and nuclear fusion technology where we believe that’s going to be an essential element in delivering reliable, affordable base load power in the future that’s zero carbon. That’s still going to be a number of years out into the future. But we believe it’s going to be absolutely essential to supplement the solar, wind and other renewable clean sources in the future. But again, we don’t want to build nuclear power plants.
We want to be the off-takers and use that power.
Bill Peterson: Thanks for the conference and answers and good luck with the execution.
Leon Topalian: Thanks Bill.
Operator: The next question comes from Martin Englert with Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Martin Englert: Good morning everyone.
Leon Topalian: Good morning.
