美國鋼鐵 (X) 2012 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the United States Steel Corporation third-quarter 2012 earnings call.

At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode.

Later, there will be an opportunity for your questions and instructions will be given at that time.

(Operator Instructions)

And as a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I'll now turn the conference over to Dan Lesnak, Manager Investor Relations.

Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Kathy.

Good afternoon and thank you for participating in United States Steel Corporation's third quarter 2012 earnings conference call and webcast.

For those of you participating by phone, the slides that are included on the webcast are also available under the investor section of our website at www.USSteel.com.

We will start the call with introductory remarks from US Steel Chairman and CEO, John Surma, covering our third-quarter results.

Next, I will provide some additional details for the third quarter, and then Gretchen Haggerty, US Steel's Executive Vice President and CFO, will comment on a few financial matters, our recently completed labor agreements, and our outlook for the fourth quarter.

Following our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to take your questions.

Before we begin, I must caution you that today's conference call contains forward-looking statements, and that future results may differ materially from statements or projections made on today's call.

For your convenience, the forward-looking statements and risk factors that could affect those statements are referenced at the end of our release and are included in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and updated in our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q in accordance with the Safe Harbor provisions.

Now, here to begin the call is US Steel Chairman and CEO, John Surma.

Thanks, Dan.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks for joining us, I expect for some under difficult circumstances.

We appreciate you taking time for us today.

We hope you're safe and secure and that things will return to normal as soon as possible.

Earlier today, we reported third-quarter net income of $44 million or $0.28 per diluted share on net sales of $4.7 billion and shipments of 5.3 million tons.

The results included a charge of $0.13 per diluted share for lump sum payments provided for in our new labor agreements with the United Steelworkers, as well as two favorable tax items which increased net income by a total of $0.27 per diluted share.

Although economic conditions remained challenging in all of our markets and continue to be so, our Tubular segment had another solid quarter, and our Flat-rolled and European segments also remained profitable.

Before I go into more detail on our segment operating results, I would like to comment on safety, our Company's primary core value.

Our collective efforts are focused on achieving a safety culture that is owned by an engaged and highly skilled workforce with the ability to identify and eliminate workplace risks and hazards.

These extensive efforts continue to yield safety performance improvements.

Most notably, in our days away from work injury rate which has been reduced by 8% through the end of the third quarter of 2012 when compared to the same period in 2011.

These improvements are highlighted by a number of significant safety milestones we achieved within the Company during the third quarter.

For example, 12 of our operating locations have worked without a days away from work injury so far this year.

And our Gary Works East Chicago Tin division surpassed two years without an OSHA recordable injury.

We're proud of the collective efforts of our employees throughout all of our operations as we continue to pursue our goal of zero injuries.

We're particularly pleased with the productive cooperation of our colleagues at the United Steelworkers who share our passion for the safety of our employees.

And while I'm commenting on the USWA, we're pleased to have completed new competitive labor contracts last month without any disruptions to our employees, customers, and operations.

And Gretchen will comment on some of the details a little bit later.

Now turning to our Flat-rolled operations, we reported income from operations of $29 million.

Higher imports earlier in the year in conjunction with lower domestic scrap and global raw materials prices caused spot and index-based contract prices to decrease in the third quarter.

Although imports eased slightly in the third quarter as US prices receded, imports still remain a significant concern, and on a year-to-date basis remain well above last year's levels and well above the modest increase in domestic demand.

We realized some benefits from lower raw materials costs, particularly scrap, and our operators did a good job of controlling maintenance and outage costs in the third quarter.

But these lower costs could only partially offset the significant impacts of lower realized prices.

Our Flat-rolled shipments in the third quarter remained in line with the second quarter, as demand in most of the markets we serve remained relatively stable.

As the markets in North America have done comparatively better than most other regions, this is a market that is likely to remain attractive to imports until global demand begins to improve.

This makes the enforcement of our existing trade laws an important issue for our industry to provide a fair environment for a sustainable recovery.

Now, turning to our European operations.

While economic conditions in Europe remain difficult, we reported an operating profit of $27 million, only slightly below the second quarter result.

Steel prices in Europe continue to be adversely affected by a number of factors including oversupply in the region, continued concern over the eurozone sovereign debt issue, and overall lower demand.

Combination of lower raw materials costs and the cost benefits from a good operating performance in the quarter substantially offset the effects of lower selling prices and shipments.

While we anticipate a further improvement in raw materials costs in the fourth quarter and remain focused on our operating performance controlling our costs, we're likely to face even greater market challenges as a lack of an economic recovery in Europe will likely result in soft demand across most of our markets in the near-term.

Our Tubular segment reported income from operations of $102 million in the third quarter, in line with the second quarter, as the effects of lower prices and shipments were offset by lower substrate costs.

Since the beginning of 2010, our Tubular operations have generated just over $1 billion of operating income.

While rig counts remained relatively stable over the first half of the year, as the increase in oil directed rigs offset the decrease in gas rigs, in the third quarter oil directed rig counts began to decrease after reaching a peak in August and gas rigs continued to decrease throughout the quarter.

Offshore activity increased during the quarter, as large operators continue to move back into the Gulf of Mexico, one of the few premier areas in the world that is not off limits for independent oil companies.

Shipments for line pipe were comparable to the second quarter, as operators continued to develop the infrastructure in a number of emerging shale plays.

While natural gas prices are moving in the right direction, they remained challenging for most dry gas only wells.

Crude oil prices are in a range that is generally considered profitable for most of the active shale plays.

However, end users are closely managing their inventories going into the end of the year and working to stay within their 2012 capital budgets.

Drilling levels and pipe purchasing activity continue to be affected.

Tubular imports continue to adversely affect supply and prices in the US market.

And current market share for imports remains near 50% for OCTG, even higher for line pipe.

As I noted in regard to Flat-rolled imports, the enforcement of existing trade laws in order to keep unfairly traded material out of the market is critical.

And we will continue to closely monitor import activity and pursue enforcement of these laws when appropriate.

Now, I'll provide a brief update on several of the important cost improvements and product development projects we're pursuing.

Carbon costs continue to be the biggest market exposure that we need to manage.

While our expectation is that our coal costs will be significantly lower in 2013, as you might expect given trends in publicly available price data, we continue to pursue projects that will both reduce our coal needs and keep us out of the volatile and expensive merchant coke market.

We're nearing a completion of two projects that will make our North American operations self-sufficient in coke making capability.

We started the first Carbonyx module at Gary Works during the third quarter, and expect to start the second module in the third quarter of 2013.

These two modules will have the capability to supply 500,000 tons of Cokonyx, a carbon alloy coke substitute, when they reach full production.

At our Clairton coke plant, the C-Battery heat up and refractory expansion has been completed and on schedule.

The final steel erection is in process and operating machinery is now being commissioned.

First coal charge is expected to be accomplished in November.

The production rate will be increased on a planned schedule as battery heating is carefully monitored in full production at an annualized rate of just under 1 million tons is anticipated to be achieved in the first quarter of 2013.

In addition to increasing our coke making capabilities, we are utilizing increasing amounts of natural gas in our North American blast furnaces as a very cost effective substitute for a portion of our coke needs, with the objective of reducing our coke rate by 100 pounds per ton of hot metal as compared to our 2010 coke rates.

At our PRO-TEC automotive joint venture in Ohio, we are constructing a state-of-the-art continuous annealing line with the capability to produce up to 500,000 tons per year of advanced high strength steels to serve our automotive customers' need for a cost effective way to meet the increasingly demanding fuel efficiency and safety standards in their future generations of vehicles.

This project remains on target for start-up in the first quarter of 2013.

Now, before I turn the call over to Dan, I'd also like to provide an update on the maintenance project we recently completed on our number 14 blast furnace at our Gary Works and on our fourth-quarter blast furnace maintenance and outage plans for our Flat-rolled segment.

As we discussed with you last quarter, we had scheduled a significant maintenance project on our largest blast furnace at our Gary Indiana works.

Our engineers and operators did an outstanding job and completed this project ahead of schedule and under budget.

The repairs will improve yields and operating performance and will enable us to significantly reduce the coke rate through increased use of natural gas, moving us much closer to our overall coke rate target that I just discussed.

For the fourth quarter, we're planning to complete maintenance projects on several of our other North American blast furnaces and related steel shops.

And while none of these individually is of the size and duration of the Gary Works number 14 blast furnace project, in total, we expect our fourth quarter maintenance and outage cost to be approximately $25 million higher than the third quarter.

Now, I will turn the call over to Dan for some details on the second quarter.

Dan?

Thank you, John.

Capital expenditures totaled $129 million in the third quarter, and we currently estimate the full year capital expenditures will be approximately $730 million.

Depreciation, depletion, amortization totaled $163 million in the quarter, and we currently expect it to be approximately $660 million for the year.

Pension and other benefits costs for the quarter totaled $120 million, and we made cash payments of $130 million.

We expect pension and other benefits costs to be approximately $510 million in 2012, a decrease of $90 million from 2011 levels.

In accordance with a prior agreement with the United Steelworkers, we will be making a $75 million contribution to our trust for retiree healthcare and life insurance in the fourth quarter.

Cash payments for pension and other benefits are expected to total approximately $575 million in 2012.

In addition to these payments, we made a $140 million voluntary contribution to our main defined benefit pension plan earlier in the year.

Excluding a net foreign currency gain of $6 million, net interest and other financial costs were $51 million for the quarter.

We expect net interest and other financial costs to be approximately the same level in the fourth quarter, absent any net foreign currency gains or losses.

Now Gretchen will cover some additional financial items, our new labor agreements, and our outlook for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Thank you, Dan.

Our cash flow from operations remained positive in the third quarter, bringing our cash from operations in the first nine months to just under $1 billion.

We've generated free cash flow, after cash used in investing activities and dividends, of almost $500 million through September, and we have reduced our total debt by almost $300 million over this same period.

We ended the third quarter with cash of $536 million and $2.4 billion of total liquidity.

Now, I would like to cover several items related to our new labor agreements that took effect on September 1. As we noted in our press release, we recorded a $35 million charge for lump sum payments of $2,000 per USW employee that were paid this month.

We will have additional lump sum payments of $500 per employee in the second quarter of 2014.

With regard to wages, we agreed to a 2% increase on September 1, 2013 and a 2.5% increase on January 1, 2015.

The new labor agreements also provide for benefit and plan design changes, which under GAAP accounting guidance required a remeasurement of our retiree medical and life obligations effective September 1. The discount rate that we used for the remeasurement was 3.75%, as compared to 4.5% as of December 31, 2011.

As remeasured, our OPEB accumulated post retirement benefit obligation is $270 million lower than at December 31, 2011, reflecting a reduction of approximately $520 million resulting from the benefit and plan design changes, partially offset by an increase of $250 million, primarily as a result of the reduced discount rate.

We also had an increase in the market value of the assets for our retiree medical and retiree life plans.

This year -- so along with the obligation reduction, the funded status of the OPEB plans improved by approximately $410 million at September 1. Also, after the remeasurement, net periodic OPEB expense is now projected to decrease approximately $20 million for 2012 and $60 million on an annualized basis.

Now turning to our outlook for the fourth quarter.

Our results are expected to reflect continued weakness in the European and emerging market economies, as well as economic uncertainty in North America.

We expect total reportable segment and other businesses operating results to be around breakeven for the fourth quarter, with decreased results in all reportable segments.

We expect a loss for our Flat-rolled segment due to slightly lower average realized prices, as well as lower shipments and higher operating costs.

Average realized prices and shipments are expected to be lower compared to the third quarter, as a result of cautious purchasing patterns earlier in the quarter created by the uncertain global economic outlook.

However, market conditions have recently begun improving in North America, and we believe that we are already beyond the spot price trough of the fourth quarter.

We expect new spot orders will be transacted for higher prices later this quarter.

Operating costs are expected to increase due to scheduled blast furnace and other maintenance projects.

Now for our European segment, we expect our results to be around breakeven.

Average realized prices are expected to decrease, reflecting lower spot market and quarterly contract pricing.

Shipments are projected to decrease compared to the third quarter due to lower consumption in automotive and other end user industries.

And operating costs are expected to decrease compared to the third quarter, primarily due to lower raw material costs.

For our Tubular segment, we expect fourth-quarter results to remain profitable, but well below third-quarter results.

Average realized prices are expected to be lower and shipments are projected to be significantly lower than the third quarter, as imports continue at high levels despite end users decreasing drilling activity in order to operate within their 2012 capital budgets.

Inventory management by our customers may also be a considerable factor as we approach year-end.

Our operating costs are expected to increase due to operating inefficiencies caused by lower production volumes.

Now to minimize the cost impact, we have taken steps to balance our operations with our customers' needs, and we've made adjustments at each of our operating locations.

We will continue to evaluate our facility loadings and keep our production in line with demand.

And lastly, we expect a minimal tax provision or benefit in the fourth quarter, primarily due to the full valuation allowance on deferred tax assets in Canada.

That concludes the outlook, Dan.

Thank you, Gretchen.

Kathy, can you please queue the line for questions?

(Operator Instructions)

Shneur Gershuni, UBS.

First question I just wanted to I guess go straight to Tubular.

You are expecting it to be weaker in the fourth quarter, but also in your prepared remarks you also talked about the Gulf of Mexico as well too.

Can you remind us how much leverage you have to the Gulf of Mexico in terms of margin expansion and so forth if we were to see more rigs hit the Gulf of Mexico in 2013?

Well, I think in total in the Gulf I want to say there's 46 or 48 rigs running, something like that.

So in total, it's a much smaller number than the 1,800 or so that include the land-based stuff, but the business that we typically would do in the offshore market would be larger diameter, heavier wall, would utilize our large diameter mill in Lorain.

And the margins on that could be quite competitive, and I think if the Gulf continues to expand and we understand that that's what the plans are by some of the major operators, we have pretty significant leverage to that.

In terms of total volume, it's not as much as there would be if total rigs were back up to 2,000.

That was a much more pleasant circumstance, but it's quite profitable business.

And we're hopeful that if that aspect of the market continues to expand as it has, that we'll do quite well there.

Great.

Follow-up question here, with respect to maintenance.

In the last several quarters, we've seen you take incremental maintenance over the previous quarter and so forth.

Would it be fair to describe 2012 as a heavy maintenance year, and would you expect the trend to slow in 2013 or is this the new normal level that we should be expecting going forward?

I think your observations are correct.

It's been a pretty heavy year.

We chart this over longer periods of time, and we've had some periods when it might have been at this level.

Keep in mind that we have more mouths to feed.

We did add some capacity along the way.

But it's been a pretty heavy year, and to be fair, back in the difficult times of 2009 in particular and '10, we didn't schedule as much work because we weren't using as much of our capacity during those difficult times.

And I don't know exactly what the schedule might be next year, but this was a fairly heavy year including the projects we have lined up in the fourth quarter, all of which are done or nearly done at this moment, I might add.

So I think your observation is a good one.

It was a pretty heavy year.

I don't want to project into next year, but there was probably some work done this year that might have been done earlier had the world been different for the last three or four years.

And it should set us up for maybe a more stable environment the next couple years.

Great.

One final question.

You mentioned that number 14 is back up and operational.

I was wondering if you can give us your expectation with what kind of production uptick you expect out of it, and kind of your -- and how does this change your coke to natural gas substitution with the project that's been completed?

On the latter part, first, the gas -- the furnace was stable, but we were running it at a much reduced rate for the last year, plus or minus, just for safety sake to make sure it stayed stable.

With it back on now, we're going to be -- we've done some work to make sure we have enough gas delivery capability to all the furnaces, particularly there.

And we should be moving up quite a bit on the amount of injection in all the Gary furnaces now that that's been finished.

And if our objective was 100, it won't get us all the way there by itself, but it gets a pretty big piece of it done.

So I think we're -- and then when we get these other maintenance jobs out of the way, we put in some new lances and things like that due to the re-capabilities.

So I think on a run rate basis as we end the year, we are hoping we're going to be pretty close to what that objective was.

We'll let you know how we did when we talk about it next time around.

In terms of total iron capacity, I don't have all the numbers in my head, but we probably were running somewhere in the order of 7,000 tons a day or something like that, maybe more, maybe a little bit less during the run-up to this.

And we ought to be going way past 8,000, up to more than -- somewhat more than that.

We'll have to see how it goes.

We want to take our time getting there.

But it's a meaningful increase and overall yield from the furnace should be much more improved with a much lower cost with lower coke rates and higher gas utilization.

Michelle Applebaum, Steel Market Intelligence.

First, I want to compliment you on the precision of the guidance this quarter.

If you start from -- you're saying pretty much breakeven and then you've got your retiree expense and you've just guided to interest expense.

It's pretty straightforward.

I think most people are coming up as I did to an $0.80 to $1 loss, which I think is great when you're in a volatile environment where you've got a price increase.

Having said that, are there any moving parts that could surprise us in any particular direction on those kind of numbers?

Michelle, I think actually we were trying to give some general guidance, acknowledging that the fourth quarter analyst estimates were at about a breakeven.

They hadn't really been updated for some period of time to reflect some of the dynamics in the markets that we're in, but we felt we needed to get people a little bit off of that.

But there's lots of moving parts.

There's each of our segments.

There's really -- we can have pluses and minuses.

We're just trying to give some general direction this time, and I think as far as the tax provision -- tax benefit, we did put some disclaimers in the forward-looking comments.

It's really a mix of earnings that can change that.

That's our best view at this time.

And so each of those pieces, we probably have some potential pricing changes in each one of those segments, for example.

So it was just the best shot we could do at this point in time to try and help steer the community a little bit.

It's great that you guys really stepped up in here because I think we're all -- I've never seen such a spinning wheel of pricing trends and cost trends in my career before.

So speaking for all of us, it's not easy.

So the most help you give us is great.

So the second question is, you're talking about a pricing trough here.

And this is, what, the fourth or the fifth trough in the last three years, right?

It's the most recent one.

It's the most recent trough.

And I'm trying to disabuse people of the concept of cyclical trough because steel seems to have its own cycles.

So can you talk about -- this is clearly the new normal.

It's been three years of these crazy six week, six month cycles.

A, what can you do?

Is there anything to do to fix that?

B, how do you respond?

What changes in your business are you making to try to deal with this ongoing extra cyclical pricing trends?

Michelle, it's very hard to do much about the market.

I'd just make a few observations.

Our volumes, particularly in Flat-rolled you're referring to, held up reasonably well in the third quarter and continue to do so.

And I think that reflects our strategy to try to develop our business with OEMs and others who we have confidence in and they have confidence in us, and we're going to get our share of their business.

And the markets we're in have remained relatively resilient, and not a lot of growth, but in some markets some, and the rest have been fairly resilient.

So we've tried to keep the volumes and utilization reasonably firm and that allows us to have a decent cost structure and some ups and downs.

And on the pricing side, we do have some different pricing mechanisms.

It's in the appendix.

You can see what they are.

They tend to imply a little more stability over time.

That means of course that it takes longer to turn the ship once the direction turns.

So it's not foolproof by any means, but I think we're just trying to get to where we can have a stable position, generally in the higher value products, generally in the more stable industries, and have a little bit better base to build on because, as you point out, the volatility is quite extreme.

And one reason for that, this is just my guess, it's only speculation of course, but if you look at the number of places where steel would reside between our shipping bay and when it gets to its final destination, whatever final product it's used in, there's fewer stops along the way and there's fewer shock absorbers.

And so whatever change there may be economically comes through to everyone in the system, including us, much more rapidly, much more severely, much less shock absorption goes on.

And we're going to have to find a way to live with that and make money in it whether we like it or not.

Yes, the rush for the [entrance] of this price increase three weeks ago that you guys led, I don't think we've ever seen -- I think all your competitors followed within two days, right?

I don't know, Michelle.

That's all been publicly reported.

We just know what we did.

We had some conversations with our customers because we thought it was appropriate to try to achieve an appropriate market price for our products.

We can't speak for anybody else.

But the timing I think validates that all the customers seem to have come back at once.

So your comment about no shock absorbers is validated by the market's behavior.

Thanks.

Sal Tharani, Goldman Sachs.

I'm sorry if you can't hear me because the telephone lines are not working very well over here.

You're fine, Sal.

We can hear you fine.

Go ahead.

Great.

First of all, John, you mentioned that the fourth quarter CapEx or maintenance will be about $25 million higher.

What was the number in the third quarter for that, by the way?

We've been guiding quarter to quarter, and 3Q was about $40 million over 2Q.

So we've been trying to (inaudible) by with just the incremental change quarter to quarter.

The absolute is a number we use for internal measurement and management.

It's not audited.

It's not designed to be comprehensive.

We just think the change is what you all tended to focus on.

That's fine, understood.

Thank you.

The other thing is when I look at the guidance for the Tubular section with a significantly lower volume, modestly lower prices, and operating costs higher, it comes out to be extremely low number which we haven't seen since 2009.

I was wondering if we're talking about significant decline in the operating profit for the quarter?

I think that's what that leads you to.

I think the rest of our guidance gets you there too, Sal.

Okay.

The channels are a little clogged, high imports, OCTG 50% plus or minus, line pipe, 57% is the number I think I recall.

And pretty good pipe stocks all the way through the system.

Inventory is about five months the last number I saw it.

The indexes that you can look at, the price trends are down.

And then with lower volumes running through the mills, our costs aren't -- they're okay, but they're not as competitive as they were.

So you put all that together and it's likely to be a less profitable quarter than we had last time.

They are working -- they're always working on trying to keep their costs under control.

So I was trying to give you a little guidance on that, that we've already taken some steps to adjust production at all of our facilities as necessary.

I'm sure we'll do more if that has to be the case.

And the last question is on the coal side.

How many contracts do you have come up for renewal?

Is it all of it coal that's going to be changed?

And also, the spot market is down about $50, $60 from the late last year at this time.

Do you think that, that's pricing we could see for you impacting -- positive impact per ton next year?

I think it's essentially all of our met coal supply, Sal, we may have some carryover tons from this year.

That's not uncommon.

It's not a huge amount, but essentially it's our total met coal.

So it's maybe 9.5 million to 10 million tons, something on that order, including injection coal if you put it all together.

I glanced at the indexes the other day as well as you did.

And I looked back a year ago from this week more or less and the benchmark was $250 to $260 I think.

And the current -- the most recent one I saw was $145, $150.

So that difference is what the market has done during that time.

That isn't necessarily where we will end up with our discussions and we're in discussions right now.

So I don't want to get into specifics.

That's not sporting.

And our numbers will be different because of what we buy and where we buy it and when we buy it.

We may take a view that we'll not buy everything at once.

We may have a little different view of that.

And we'll come back with a more specific view of that, because it is a big number for us, in January.

But just looking at the overall trend of overall prices, one would think that our expectation should be for somewhat lower coal costs for the coming year.

Mark Parr, KeyBanc Capital Markets.

John, can you hear me all right?

You're okay, Mark.

Okay.

Sorry, I'm not at the desk.

I'm on the road.

But I was wondering if you could provide a little more color on this recent pricing move.

We've seen raw material prices come down.

I guess there maybe is a little bit of help from scrap in November.

It doesn't seem like there's the kind of cost push momentum to really go after a price increase.

Is it -- is what you've been seeing coming from the demand side, and could you give some color on where you're seeing the demand recovery pick up?

For us at least, demand through most of the year and the markets -- we gave you some highlights in the slides -- have been pretty sustained, pretty good throughout the year, not a lot of change.

Automotive has been trending up and tin, pretty good in the third quarter, appliance, okay.

And so most of our markets -- equipment markets have been okay.

It's really the intermediaries where some of the change was, and there was a bit of a slowdown and a pause, lots of caution, understandably so.

I think the intermediary service center, and converters and the like were on the sidelines to some degree.

I can only tell you our thinking is we're just trying to get a fair price for our product based upon what we judge the market to be able to deliver, and that's what we are trying to attain right now.

Our order rates have moved up quite a bit since we began having that conversation with our customers, and we think the supply/demand balance as far as we can see in the markets we serve with our material has us in a pretty good place right now.

Okay, I appreciate that.

In terms of a follow-up, could you just give us an update on PRO-TEC, on the new continuous annealing line, and your update -- your most updated thoughts on how the new advanced high strength steel programs are going?

Sure.

The project is going well, as I mentioned just briefly in my comments.

It's on schedule and heading for commissioning and start-up in the early part of next year.

So I think we're excited about it.

I think it's exactly what the market is looking for, and many of our -- all of our important automotive customers are excited about it as well.

We've already had lots of discussions about specific parts and specific applications.

I think it's part of a broader strategy of ours, because the automotive market is so important to us, to try to make sure we give our automotive customers a compelling reason to use our product.

And in this case, it's a combination of strength, because the grades that this line will be able to produce are way out in front of most of what's being used today.

That of course then equates to a significant weight reduction.

The World Steel Future Steel Vehicle Program, which has the framework for all this, you can see publicly what those numbers look like.

We have a manufacturing advantage in terms of forming and stamping and coating and we've got a good value.

So we put all that together, we're going to make a compelling case that our material is what they should be designing into models that are out three or four years from now.

If you like and you want to put a more sustainable view on that and take a life cycle analysis of total carbon emissions from material production through end of use including recycling, our material against any of the others looks really, really good on that basis.

So we are trying to put together, and we think we have, a very compelling offer and the CA line that we're excited about having on next year is a central part of that.

So that's a long answer, I'm sorry, but it's something I like to talk about.

Is there -- if you look at the customer response to what you're doing, it would seem like it's pretty robust.

Do you think that there -- we would be thinking within the next 18 months of putting another one of these lines in?

Is there that opportunity?

I don't know, Mark.

That's a good question.

That really depends more on what the consumers would want and how fast they would want it.

My sense is that, that may be a bit on the early side, but if it was the case that there was that level of demand, nothing would make us happier than to do it again.

I think that would be great.

All right, terrific.

And one last question, if I could, just to get your updated thoughts on Fairfield in terms of the steel shop down there?

How's that facility unfolding?

How's the blast furnace holding up?

And do you have any updated thoughts on potentially moving toward electric arc furnace steelmaking down there?

Really nothing to update on that, Mark, in terms of our thinking or plans.

The furnace is running well, very stable, and we've got a good plan in place to give us some more time to think about that.

In the meantime, make pretty cost competitive iron and very good steel for both the Flat-rolled side and also for our pipe mill.

As you know, we cast tube around there as well.

But the furnace, very stable.

We've got a campaign of shock treating quite frequently, and using a certain type of burden that allows us to make sure that the furnace stays stable.

So we think we're in good shape there for some time yet.

Timna Tanners, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.

Glad to hear that you didn't have any damage from the hurricane and hope everyone on the line is doing well.

Had a couple questions.

Shoot.

Wanted to ask about on the cost side, going into the future, it looks like CapEx came down for the quarter, wondering if you're rethinking projects in light of the market environment?

And similarly, SG&A is as low as it's been in the last couple years.

Can you give us detail on what you've been doing to cut costs or how you're thinking about CapEx going forward?

I'll let Gretchen maybe comment on SG&A.

But just on CapEx, we have certain projects authorized and there's a steady diet of smaller things we do all the time for staying in business, environmental, energy, efficiency, safety, and other things just have to get done from time to time.

We have not launched any major new projects recently, and we're finishing up several big ones as I just mentioned and like everyone else l think we're approaching big projects right now with caution and trying to make sure that we have a pretty good view of the world going forward.

Quite frankly, we don't.

We're not sure what the world's going to bring.

The next three to six months could be important one way or the other.

I hope in a positive way, but we don't know.

No one knows, as we know.

So I think we're -- our CapEx doesn't have -- do not have any major new projects in it.

We are looking at iron ore, looking at DRI, all those sorts of things, and projects in Tubular, et cetera.

But we're maintaining a cautious view right now, not sure where the world's going to go.

So I think we have things that can add value and we'll fit those in, but we want to make sure we can maintain our capital spending through operations and we don't want to borrow our way to prosperity.

There's lots of examples that, that doesn't work.

So we're going to try to make sure we can live within our means.

And until we can have better visibility, we'll probably not have a lot of major new projects launched.

Gretchen, SG&A -- other than try to keep an eye on cost, but go ahead Gretchen.

The only other one thing that I would add to what John said on the capital spending side is exactly right, and I think the last quarter we had a capital spending of $780 million.

Now, just in the interest of full discussion here, we did have some heavy equipment and things like that in our plans which we managed to acquire through operating leases rather than capital spending.

And that's a big piece of the difference between the $780 million and where our current guidance of $730 million is, but we have been managing it very carefully.

And I think that John's view about wanting to spend at the right levels is absolutely true.

On the SG&A side, we are going through our annual budgeting process just as we speak.

And I'm sure that we'll have some opportunities to try and reduce that.

We do tend to have a big piece that comes out in benefit expenses, and we won't know what that's going to be until we remeasure things at the end of the year.

But the -- I don't think that we have any major plans to talk about right now that are going to result in significant SG&A reductions.

We are implementing a systems effort which is going to still take some time.

And so while there's a certain element there where we would expect to have some reductions over time, we're really not in a position to do that right at this moment because we're still going through the implementation and that requires some effort.

And Timna, I wouldn't want you to think, based on my answer, we're not looking at very attractive capital projects.

We have a long list, a lot of them in the Tubular segment, whether it's on the threading side or some of the small diameter things we're thinking about, Lorain or on the large diameter mill.

We've got lots of opportunities with good ROI potential.

Just a matter of fitting them in at the right time.

Okay, that's helpful.

If I could, my second question was on Tubular and looking past even the quarterly guidance you gave.

We know that Valor I think is supposed to start up its operations in Ohio the next quarter or two.

And on top of the destocking and on top of the imports, how long will it take for the recovery and how do you think about the greater capacity coming into the market, what that means for your operations?

All we know about capacity is what we hear from folks like you and what we read, but we're aware of a number of projects and we expect that they'll be completed at some point.

I think the long-term prospect for energy development in our country is good and really has to be good.

It's one of the best things our country has.

So it should be the centerpiece of any economic package that -- no matter who's in charge should want to make a big piece of it.

So we think the energy markets are going to be very strong for an extended period.

We think there will be a great need for pipe.

There's a lot of wells to be drilled.

The speed of that development's going to depend to some degree on policy, to some degree how quickly markets adjust to availability of large amounts of gas.

And we think that if imports are fairly traded, then there should be plenty of room for additional manufacturing in North America which ought to be very cost competitive just like ours is.

We think we've got good facilities, great facilities, seamless, and ERW.

We've got a complete complement of line pipe sizes.

We've got threads.

We've got couplings, we have services.

So we think we're well placed.

We're going to do well in the market no matter what.

But if anything, the import share really should diminish if in fact imports are fairly traded, and that's a big question mark in our mind right now.

Arun Viswanathan, Longbow Research.

Thanks for taking my question.

I guess that was a good segue, so my first question is what is the outlook for any kind of trade help on the Tubular side?

And that has been the biggest problem.

The imports in pipe are much worse than many other markets.

So maybe you can just comment on your thoughts there?

Not much beyond -- can't say much beyond what I said or we said in our prepared remarks.

We watch that very carefully.

There are certain regions, Korea in particular, that have import flows that are very large quantities, way over where they have been in recent periods and at landed prices that just have to be at a level which is below cost.

So we see that, we review that, we analyze it.

In the US system of course, it's a judicial matter and there needs to be a legal case taken.

We don't mind doing that, I think the record is pretty clear, when we think our rights have been aggrieved and where we think we have a strong case we can win.

So it's just for us, it's a matter of gathering information, analyzing things, and if necessary, if we feel that we have been affected by it and our laws have been abridged then we'll take an action.

But it's a legal matter, and I really can't go much beyond that.

But we watch it very carefully.

Okay, thanks.

And another question I had was how does this period compare to the last couple fourth quarters?

Looks like everybody fourth quarter there's a little bit of blip in pricing ahead of some restocking in the first quarter.

Are you seeing that again and is that giving you some -- a little bit of optimism about the market right now or is it different this year versus '10 and '11?

That's a very good question.

I think there always is at the end of the year some element of budget constraints, some element of inventory minimization for ad valorem tax.

There is a whole bunch of reasons for it.

And it's probably been with us or was with us I think the last couple years, but it was it was in a context of, generally speaking, an increasing rig count so it might not have been as visible and might not have had the same kind of impact that we're seeing right now.

And I think the general observations we made are quite similar to what many of the oil field service companies have in their observations as well.

So I think those things are always there to some degree.

Usually when the calendar turns, they tend to fade away and the market returns.

But it's going to depend a lot on how active the development companies are and what their budgets are like.

And our hope and expectation is it will be a pretty good year next year, but really remains to be seen where the price structures go.

Brian Yu, Citi.

My first question to follow-up on is CapEx.

You mentioned that there is really nothing major for next year.

And I'm just looking at my notes, it looks like you may be sustaining CapEx around $450 million to $500 million.

Is that a reasonable estimate?

If you want to think in terms of -- that's probably not a bad base infrastructure estimate.

If you -- I always go back, Brian, to, if you look at 2009 when we were really just trying to cut back capital spending as much as possible and we did continue with some projects there, but we almost worked it down to about $400 million at one point.

And we ended up spending $470 million that year.

So I think that's probably a reasonable rule of thumb.

But I think that if you look on average, maybe from '04 through '08, it was more like $700 million or something.

So I think that it's more -- we're going to be at heavier levels, I think than the $450 million.

We do have to finish our -- we're going to have spending into 2013 for C-Battery and the Carbonyx units and things like that.

So I think I can see us spending more in the $700 million, $800 million, or plus range depending on what our opportunities are, but we'll get into that in January with our board.

Got it.

And then the second question is on similar lines, just from the investment side, John, you mentioned DRI, EAF, and it looks like everybody's getting a free look at TK's Calvert facility.

When you think strategically, what would be more compelling for the management team and the board, is it to try to improve the cost structure with the DRI and EAF or try to go to the top line with value added mix with potentially TK's plant?

The easy answer is both, I think.

With the capital constraint.

And we've been doing both, if you note.

We did do an important top line project at Lorain, our new heat-treat and threading and processing facility at Lorain, $100 million worth.

At the same time, we're spending a lot of money on the coke batteries to make sure our coke costs and carbon costs stay well in hand.

The opportunity for DRI and EAF we find attractive, because with our own furnace resource, it we were in a position to do that, the economics are very attractive.

And likewise, the potential for adding some additional finishing capabilities, perhaps if that was in the cards, because there are some markets which we find very attractive that may have some growth in them, that's all good.

But I think for the mega projects, particularly on the hot end side or on the steelmaking and ironmaking side, the length of time, the amount of capital against the uncertainty that's in the future today is a pretty big lift for us and we're being very cautious about it.

Richard Garchitorena, Credit Suisse.

A couple questions.

First on the Tubular side, I just wanted to touch on pricing.

And I know you have contract business in place and I believe they get reset every 6 to 12 months and they do roll over.

So can you give us a sense of when those are going to be renewing or what percent is going to be renewing?

And how do you think about the near-term, given your guidance for 4Q?

On Tubular, Richard?

Yes.

On Tubular, we don't have much that's long.

Most of our pricing on Tubular is either monthly or spot negotiation or on what we would call our program business where we and a group of customers agree on so much capacity allocated to each one.

That's generally based upon some periodic negotiation of pricing, but not real long-term.

So we're caught up to market prices pretty quickly and not anything that's out very long on a Tubular side.

Okay, that's very helpful.

And then on the contract note, any discussions with the auto makers for next year, and anything you can say directionally?

No, we're having some discussions, but as you know, that's something we would rather finish before we talk about it and even then we're cautious about it, just to be good sports.

But I think it always depends on where you're coming from, what the last contract date was and what the pricing structures were then.

Given where we are today and maybe some direction in the market versus last year which was a little higher but the direction was down at this point, I don't know, I guess our sense is that probably things stay fairly stable next year.

We have a good bit of our contract business which is -- and you can see this in the pie charts in the appendix -- it's index responsive.

So you can follow that, keep score at home on that to some degree.

But on those contracts that are firm or firmer cost base, probably some stability in those, not big changes either way.

Okay.

If I could just ask one more question on Europe.

You are guiding to breakeven this quarter.

So that's a meaningful decline versus the third quarter.

Can you talk about the environment there?

You talked about pricing and troughing in the US.

What are you seeing in Europe and looking forward to next year?

Things in Europe are very choppy right now, if you look at just the current economic stuff, the flash PMIs and all that, well below 50% in recession.

I think the World Steel forecast for the EU-27 for 2012 was apparent steel use down by 6%, I think, something along those lines.

So we're going to get our share of that.

Although, given where we are in Slovakia and the V4 region with some decent position in automotive and packaging and some German-based manufacturing, we've done a little better than that.

You can see our utilizations and volumes have been relatively good, not good, but relatively compared to everybody else, good.

I think it's going to be pretty slow in Europe certainly for this quarter as we suggested.

Auto production which we have a piece of, directly and indirectly, is way off.

Manufacturing, off.

Construction continues to be very difficult in that austerity land part of the world.

So there's not a whole lot of good news in Europe.

And on pricing, things are very, very competitive.

Whether you're coming from the west, from the east, from the south, from the north, things are very competitive and I expect it's going to stay that way for a little while.

So we're focused really on our cost and our market to make sure we're selling the right things at the location where we have some decent logistics to.

But we have a really good operating cost structure, really high productivity, good logistics on materials, and very competitive cost on materials.

So we think our cost structure is as good as anybody, and we're going to focus on that and try to keep our costs as low as they can.

And for us to be able to make money quarter after quarter recently in that environment is something we're very proud of our people for having pulled that off.

David Lipschitz, CLSA.

Can you hear me okay?

You're fine, David.

You're coming through loud and clear.

Okay, thank you.

So if you look at the shipment data, auto is strong, energy is pretty strong, construction, I guess, is the only thing that's still relatively weak.

What kind of increase in non-res construction do we need to get to a point with the capacity that we have now to where prices can stay at higher elevated levels?

That's a good question, David.

When you look back at the different industries that we see and serve and can conclude about a bit and take a look at where the industry is today versus pre-recession days, I think in the most recent World Steel forecast which just came out a couple weeks ago -- and it's a little dated, but it's probably as good as anything.

I think if you take a look at the forecast in World Steel for either NAFTA or the US, they're both similar.

The rate of increase in apparent steel in 2012 over '11 was up pretty handily, a little less, but still growth forecasted for 2013 over '12.

But at the end of 2013, I think NAFTA is at 92% or 93% of 2007.

So we're still pretty far behind where we were then and there is some, depending on how you view it, changes in capacity at least since then.

And probably the biggest miss in terms of overall steel consuming sectors is construction, both res and non-res.

And if you believe the signs of life that you've been reading about recently from home builders and others that there's some pent-up demand and that, that's going to start to come back, we have no idea if it's true or not, but we sure hope it is.

And then that begins to lead us towards some nonresidential construction which we have a piece of.

That would be a big step to get back to where the supply/demand balance in today's world would allow us to have the kind of price stability at levels that sustained a much better return back then than we did today.

It's a long route, I know, but even if the World Steel forecast comes true for '13, we're still only a little more than 90% of the way back from where we were in 2007 and construction is the biggest miss.

So I think you're on the right point.

And if there's signs of life there, we'll do our best to fan the flames.

But I think that would be a big piece of the market to watch to see how we might do in the future.

That does conclude our Q&A session.

Please go ahead with any closing remarks.

Thank you, Kathy.

We certainly appreciate everybody's interest.

And as John said, we certainly appreciate the effort you took to join us today.

And we will look forward to being back with you in late January with our recap of the year and some discussion on next year.

Hope everybody stays safe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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