US Steel has no immediate acquisitions plans - CEO

Saturday, 28 Jun 2008

Platts reported that US Steel has no near term plans to acquire either a scrap processor or a majority stake in metallurgical coal, despite continued concern over raw material supply.

Mr John Surma chairman & CEO of the US Steel while speaking at the Steel Success Strategies to a question about whether US Steel might follow the model of Steel Dynamics and OmniSource and acquire a scrap processor said that “It is certainly always possible we might choose to become more invested in the scrap sector and we have obviously been studying what our two worthy competitors did. I would not rule that out but at least for the moment we plan no move in that direction."

Mr Surma said that US Steel currently is too invested in several other projects in North America, such as the first ever carbon alloy synthetics facility near its Fairfield works in Alabama; its joint venture with Sun Coke building a new coke battery co generation facility at Granite City in Illinois and an expansion of its Keystack Mine in Minnesota to produce more iron ore pellets.

Mr Surma noted that “If steel production growth forecasts are correct at 6% per year over the next few years that would require another 110 million tons of iron ore pellets which is five times our mine's output in one year.”

He said that “The implied 90 million tons increase in steel production in one year would also require 36 million tons more coke and 50 million tons more metallurgical coal and the largest mine produces just under 17 million tons per year. That means for 2009 we would need three more of the largest [mines] up and running in one year, after what we need to add this year and next year.”