Steel Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STLD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Theresa Wagler: From a modeling perspective, just from a volume, I mentioned in my opening notes that we do expect to see some regular seasonality in the steel fabrication volume as well. So sequentially we would expect it to be modestly lower than what you would’ve seen the third quarter. But again, we’re not attesting that to — I think I addressed the consumption question when I responded to Carlos. As it relates to average pricing. Again, the backlog’s very strong. If you’re having seasonally lower volumes, I think it’s a reasonable expectation to think pricing will be down somewhat, but we don’t see it being in the same magnitude as the sequential second to third quarter, it’ll be somewhat less than that.

Tristan Gresser: Alright. If I may…

Mark Millett: Relative to the pricing, it’s — the market actually has been a little confounding because since mid-July, we have seen the market being very, very strong, very solid. In fact, order input rate has been great. You have a situation where people — it was more emotional there. There’s no main structural change in demand that allowed, or pushed pricing down. It was more emotion relative to the strike. Mid-September when people recognized that it’s sort of already been baked into the price, when they saw that inventories are very, very, very low and the supply chain, they see that lead times are stretch — already stretching out, that we’ve seen an inflection and that there is definitely an upward momentum in collaborative pricing today.

It’s our anticipation and the anticipation of others that there’s going to be quite a market increase in pricing once there’s a resolution to that strike. Looking forward, we see a very positive — very positive constructive market environment.

Tristan Gresser: Thank you. That’s very helpful. If I just have a quick follow up and this time more on the capital allocation side. I mean, given the current context, and I think you touch on and you reaffirm what are your capital allocation priorities are, can you just reiterate what you view on inorganic growth? And could you confirm that at the moment you’re not interested in looking at large acquisition on the flat rolled side and that’s not an area of focus and that right now a 100% of your attention is on aluminum?

Theresa Wagler: Tristan, we can’t confirm that. So from a growth perspective, we’re very transparent on capital allocation. Our primary focus is for high return growth, and that can be both organically and it can be transactional. We are very much focused on the aluminum strategy and that will be a priority. We are sitting with record liquidity at the end of the quarter of $3.7 billion. So we really have, I think, the luxury and we don’t take it for granted, it’s because of the performance of the teams, which is incredible, the luxury to be able to both invest organically, transactionally if there was something that were to fit into our long-term strategy as well as continue with the strong shareholder returns. And that at this point in time is our full intent, is to be able to accomplish that.

Tristan Gresser: All right. That’s very clear. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Timna Tanners at Wolfe Research.

Theresa Wagler: Hey, good morning, Timna.

Timna Tanners: Wanted to just ask a little bit more about Sinton. If I go back in my notes, a couple years ago you were talking about being at full capacity, 3 million tons, and now you’re talking about 70%, 80%. So I’m just trying to understand, is there some reason that it’s no longer expected to run full out or are you just assuming like maybe some gradual ramp up? I just want to understand that better.