美國鋼鐵 (X) 2013 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the first-quarter 2013 earnings conference call.

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

Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session.

(Operator Instructions)

I would now like the to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Dan Lesnak.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lois Good afternoon, thank you for participating in US Steel's first-quarter 2013 earnings conference call and webcast.

For those of you participating by phone, the slides 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 first-quarter results.

Next, I will provide some additional details for the first quarter and then Gretchen Haggerty, US Steel Executive Vice-President and CFO, will comment on a few financial matters and our outlook for the second quarter of 2013.

Following 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 10-Q in accordance with the Safe Harbor provisions.

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

Thanks, Dan, and good afternoon, everyone.

Appreciate you taking the time to join us today.

Earlier today we reported a first-quarter net loss of $73 million, or $0.51 per share, on net sales of $4.6 billion, shipments of 5.5 million tons.

These results included a charge of $0.16 per share related to the repurchase of a majority of our 2014 convertible notes.

Our segment operating income increased from the fourth quarter primarily due to improved results from our Tubular and European segments.

Before I go into more detail on our segment operating results, I'd like to comment on safety.

In 2013, we continue our efforts to maintain and improve upon a sustainable safety process.

I'm pleased to note that through the first four months of the year, we have not had an injury that resulted in an employee missing work for 31 days or more.

Tangible proof that our efforts are being rewarded and I think that all of our employees -- I thank all of our employees for their contributions to this very important achievement.

Now, turning to our Flat-rolled Operations.

We reported a loss from operations of $13 million in the first quarter as compared to income of $11 million in the fourth quarter.

While our commercial results and operating performance were similar to the fourth quarter, the decrease in operating income primarily reflects that the fourth quarter benefited from several smaller favorable cost items that were not repeated in the first quarter.

Our facilities continued to perform extremely well as our US plants operated at a 90% raw steel utilization rate.

We expect our utilization rates to be lower in the second quarter primarily due to blast furnace and steel shop maintenance projects that are already largely completed.

As we noted in our second quarter outlook, we expect our repair and maintenance costs to be approximately $75 million higher than the first quarter.

Our Flat-rolled shipments in the first quarter increased slightly from the fourth quarter.

Automotive demand remained firm and most other markets we serve were generally stable.

As the markets that are currently strongest consume a higher percentage of value-added products, we expect a favorable trend in product mix in the second quarter.

North America remains an attractive market in comparison to many other regions on certain products.

While preliminary census data through March indicates sheet imports decreased by about 10% from the fourth quarter, they are comparable to the first quarter 2012 and are increasing on value-added products such as galvanized and tin mill, which continues to negatively affect both prices and shipment levels for various product categories in our Flat-rolled segment.

Now before I move on to our Tubular results, as most of you may be aware the labor agreement covering our Lake Erie Works expired on April 15th.

A successor agreement has not been reached and a lockout of represented employees started on Sunday morning.

Our Canadian facilities are comparatively higher cost operations and we felt -- and we need a labor agreement at Lake Erie Works that reflects the position of this facility in a very competitive steel market.

Our Tubular segment income from operations was $64 million in the first quarter, a significant improvement from the fourth quarter.

First-quarter operating costs were lower as we had completed several maintenance projects in the fourth quarter.

The first-quarter results also reflect the benefits from increased shipments and lower substrate costs as well as cost benefits from recent projects and other cost reduction efforts.

Although the average US rig count trended lower from the fourth quarter 2012, the underlying drivers of the energy Tubular market were mostly positive during the first three months of 2013.

Domestic crude oil prices have remained near $90 per barrel which is typically supported oil focused drilling.

In addition, natural gas and storage ended the withdrawal season below the five-year average with the help of a colder than normal end to the winter season.

As a result, the benchmark natural gas price has risen 18% since the beginning of the year to over $4 per MMBtu.

Given these conditions, we would expect drilling activity to increase.

While rig counts are a good general indicator of activity levels, the drilling efficiency of rigs has continued to improve and actual demand is comparable to fourth-quarter 2012 levels.

Imports continue to come in at historically high levels during the first two months of the year with OCTG imports averaging nearly 50% market share and line pipe imports averaging over 60%.

Imports from Korea reached record high levels in January, and are currently running well ahead of last year.

Now turning to our European operations.

As we have discussed recently, we had received expressions of interest in US Steel Kosice.

The continuing Eurozone financial and debt crisis has weighed on USSK's results for some time and we will face some additional challenges in the near future, particularly related to the investments in environmental control technology mandated by the EU's burdensome regulatory structure and carbon regime.

Therefore, we believed it was our responsibility to evaluate these expressions of interest in the context of our overall capital allocation strategy and based on our consideration, we decided that it was in the best interest of all our stakeholders to retain our position in USSK.

USSK is an excellent facility, highly motivated skilled employees, very competitive conversion cost, situated in a good geographic location with markets that, many times in the past, provided very good opportunities for our Company.

In March, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Slovakia that outlines areas in which the government will work with us to help create a more competitive environment for our operations despite the current challenging economic climate that both our Company and the government face.

This agreement provides the opportunity for a long-term improvement in our energy costs which we currently estimate could be approximately EUR15 million per year beginning in 2016, as well as the potential to receive as much as EUR75 million to partially offset capital costs associated with certain of these EU environmental initiatives.

We appreciate the diligence of Prime Minister Fico and his government to reach this agreement and we're looking forward to continuing our operations in Slovakia and producing positive results.

Now turning to our first-quarter results for Europe.

We reported an operating profit of $38 million in the first quarter, a significant improvement over the $7 million profit we reported last quarter and the highest quarterly result for US Steel Kosice since the second quarter of 2010.

We believe the restocking cycle and the distribution chain that occurred in the first quarter has concluded.

We expected a modest seasonal increase in the construction and packaging sectors in the second quarter will support shipment levels similar to the first quarter.

In addition to our commitment to safety improvement that I mentioned earlier, we continue to focus on other areas that we can control as we're not content to wait for an eventual global economic recovery to improve our results.

Our objective is to position our Company to deliver the best results possible regardless of market conditions and in pursuit of that objective we completed several strategic projects, have projects in progress, and we are evaluating a number of future opportunities.

All these are intended to improve our cost structure, operating efficiency, reliability, and financial performance and support our customer's continually evolving needs for more highly engineered and advanced steel products.

Last quarter, we outlined our overall carbon strategy to optimize the fuel blend at each blast furnace as the cost of coke injection coal and natural gas may change.

And important piece of the strategy included investments in coke and coke substitute production capabilities to improve our long-term self sufficiency in this very important raw material.

The startup of C Battery at our Clairton plants has been completed and the battery is running at full production levels.

At Gary Works, we completed construction on the first Carbonyx module late last year.

Since then we've encountered some challenges, largely in the front-end coal handling and preparation systems.

Given the current economic environment, and our ability to satisfy our coke requirements in North America, we've decided to slow the pace of construction activities on the second module to allow for some additional work on the first module to address the issues we've encountered to ensure a long-term, stable operating platform.

Overall, we have confidence in the core technology and believe that the issues we've encountered thus far are manageable and that the anticipated long-term operating and environmental benefits will be achieved.

At our iron ore operations in Minnesota, we're developing several smaller projects aimed at improving the yield on crude ore mined at our Minntac Operations, and we have worked with the appropriate authorities in Minnesota to extend the permits for the Keetac expansion project which remains on hold at this time.

As we continue to evaluate our future needs for additional blast furnace pellets.

At the same time, we are evaluating our mining operations and pellet production process to determine the feasibility and technical requirements to produce low silica DRI grade pellets from our ore body.

The initial phase of this evaluation 6is complete and we have determined that it is feasible to liberate the silica from our crude ore and produce a DRI grade pellet.

Subsequent evaluation is now under way to determine the technical process requirements and the estimated capital investment required to produce DRI grade pellets from our operations if we would choose to do so.

We're focused on keeping steel the material of choice for the automotive industry as the automakers work to meet the CAFE standards on fuel efficiency while also improving safety performance.

We completed a construction of a technologically advanced 500,000 tons per year continuous annealing line at our Pro-Tec Automotive Coating Company joint venture earlier this year, and the commissioning process went very well.

This state of the art line will process the next generation of advanced high strength steels with formability attributes that exceed our current range of products and will provide our automotive customers with a cost effective and environmentally sound alternative to other competing materials.

We've been aggressively marketing these products to our automotive customers and are incorporating the use of these grades to achieve their advanced light weight vehicle designs of the future.

We've also continued to invest in our Tubular products capabilities.

We remain focused on research and development activities aimed at developing new steel grades to meet the energy industry's specialized needs.

We continue to work on adding to our existing portfolio of premium and semi-premium proprietary connections.

One result of those efforts, the new USS-Liberty FJM premium connection, was introduced to the market last year and has been well-received by our customers.

And in the first quarter, shipments of our semi-premium connections reached record levels as we continued to increase our participation in this very profitable business.

In addition, we have a new tubular services joint venture, Patriot Premium Threading Services in Midland, Texas, that provides premium connection threading on our pipe, accessories and repair and technical and rig site services primarily to customers in the Permian Basin.

Earlier today, our Board of Directors approved a project to expand the production capabilities of the No.

4 seamless hot mill at our Lorain Tubular Operations.

This project will increase the mill's range of outside diameters from a maximum of 4.875 inches to just over 6 inches.

We believe this project will allow for increased utilization of what is already a highly productive asset.

This 5.5 inch OCTG casing is in high demand for shale play drilling and is in alignment with our strategic objective to increase our premium Tubular products capabilities.

This project in Lorain will also provide incremental productivity increases at our Fairfield Tubular Heat Treat Operations as the smaller end of the Fairfield production range will now be produced at Lorain, which is strategically located to serve an important and growing customer base operating in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays, while increasing our ability to load the Fairfield mill with larger diameter pipe to serve growing demand in regions such as the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

Also at Lorain, we entered into an agreement with our neighbors, Republic Steel, to supply steel rounds to our Tubular Operations starting in 2014.

Subject to the completion and startup of Republic's new EAF facility in Lorain.

We expect to realize significant benefits from this arrangement including reduced transportation costs as well as increased flexibility in the ordering and receipt of rounds, as shorter lead times and faster delivery will improve our ability to match our rounds needs to our order book and manage our rounds inventory at levels aligned with our business needs.

We're also working with Republic Steel on a joint study for a potential DRI joint venture.

It would be located at Lorain and primarily feed the new EAF that they are constructing there.

Phase one of the study was completed last year and we're well into the second phase of the study where the project will be defined to the extent required for final decisions by the potential partners.

If both companies would elect to proceed, this project could afford us the opportunity to leverage the rounds supply agreement, abundant and competitively priced natural gas, and potentially our own iron ore assets to provide a very attractive cost structure for our Tubular Operations at Lorain.

We continue to make progress in implementing a comprehensive North American enterprise resource planning, or ERP project, to replace numerous legacy systems and processes that were developed over many, many years.

This ERP investment will help us streamline, standardize, and centralize and improve the cost efficiencies of our business processes through the use of a fully integrated software solution.

In addition to a number of smaller deployments, we have deployed the fully integrated solution at one operating location and we have additional implementations scheduled later this year.

We expect to complete our implementation schedule in 2016,, and we anticipate realizing significant benefits in all aspects of our business, particularly through increased access to real-time data that could help us all make faster and better business decisions.

Before I turn the call back to Dan, I want to address one more very important item.

In this world of short cycles and high volatility, we must continue to find new ways to significantly reduce costs in a sustainable way.

In addition to the specific initiatives I just mentioned, under the leadership of Mario Longhi, our Chief Operating Officer, we're forming a series of cross-functional teams throughout the organization to increase our focus on a number of critical cost areas where we spend a very substantial amount of money.

We're attacking these costs in a very focused and thoughtful way so that the cost savings will be sustainable, but with the urgency that is necessary in the world in which we operate.

Areas of focus include purchased materials, logistics, repair and maintenance practices and spending, operating efficiency, including quality, productivity and reliability, and, of course, SG&A.

We're not prepared to discuss the specific target for the potential savings at this time.

However, our spending in these areas is in the billions of dollars annually and a small percentage reduction would be very meaningful to our results.

I don't want to convey that these efforts are easy or something that we can necessarily accomplish unilaterally, but we intend to employ the same type of leadership and focus to these opportunities to significantly reduce our costs as we did to our efforts to dramatically improve our safety performance and to reduce our hot metal costs by optimizing our blast furnace fuels.

Now, I'll turn the call over to Dan for some additional details on the first quarter.

Dan?

Thanks, John.

Capital spending totaled $116 million in the first quarter, and we currently estimate the full year capital spending will be approximately $750 million.

Depreciation, depletion, amortization totaled $171 million in the first quarter.

We currently expect it to be approximately $685 million for the year.

Pension and other benefits costs for the quarter totaled $109 million and we made cash payments for pension and other benefits of $120 million.

We expect pension and other benefits costs to be approximately $440 million in 2013, and expect cash payments for pension and other benefits to be approximately $550 million for the year excluding any voluntary pension contributions we may make.

Net interest on the financial costs were $61 million for the quarter, excluding the $34 million charge related to the repurchases of our 2014 convertible notes and a $9 million unfavorable foreign currency effect from the remeasurement of a US dollar denominated intercompany loan.

We expect any interest and other financial costs to be approximately $63 million in the second quarter, excluding any foreign currency remeasurement gains or losses.

Now, Gretchen will cover some additional items in our outlook for the second quarter of 2013.

Thank you, Dan.

I'd like to start with our cash flow.

In the first quarter, our cash from operations was $233 million, and after deducting our cash used in investing and our dividends we had free cash flow of $134 million.

Over the last 12 months, we have generated just under $1 billion of cash from operations and have had free cash flow of $276 million.

As our results have improved, we have reduced our net debt by over $600 million since the end of 2011, and our total liquidity has increased by over $700 million as both our cash and the availability under our credit facilities has increased.

Now, I'd like to discuss our recent very successful capital markets transactions and the favorable impact they've had on our capital structure.

In March, we issued $275 million of 6.875% senior notes due in 2021 and $316 million of 2.75% senior convertible notes due in 2019, raising total proceeds of approximately $576 million.

The pricing on these notes was attractive.

The maturities fit well into our existing maturity schedule.

And the offerings were well received by the markets.

We used the net proceeds to repurchase $542 million of our 4% senior convertible notes that were due in May of 2014.

This was our largest maturity at $863 million and as we've discussed on past calls, we felt that it was a prudent and reasonable strategy to refinance at least a portion of the notes prior to maturity.

These concurrent offerings allowed us to take advantage of very low interest rates and strong conditions in two different markets to refinance the 2014 convertibles in a very balanced way.

After the repurchases, $321 million of the 2014 convertible notes remain outstanding which is a very manageable maturity and the only significant one we have between now and late 2015.

The repurchase of $542 million of the 2014 convertible notes also reduces our potential diluted share count by 17 million shares.

The remaining balance of $321 million represents potential dilution of 10 million shares and will continue to be accounted for under the if converted method as they have been since they were issued in 2009.

The newly issued 2019 convertible notes will be treated differently when calculating diluted earnings per share.

Since it is our intent to settle the principal amount of these notes in cash upon conversion, they will be accounted for under the Treasury Stock Method.

Under this method, the 2019 convertible notes will not be dilutive unless the market price of our shares exceeds the conversion price of $25.29.

In such case, the potential dilution would be limited to the number of shares equal to the in the money value of the conversion option in the notes.

In effect, the principal amount outstanding is treated as debt since it will be repaid in cash and not in shares.

Now turning to our outlook for the second quarter.

We expect total reportable segment and other businesses operating results to be near breakeven.

Results for our Tubular segment are projected to be comparable with the first quarter.

However, we expect lower results from our Flat-rolled and European segments.

While we project North American Flat-rolled market conditions for the second quarter to be comparable to the first quarter, we expect an operating loss for our Flat-rolled segment primarily due to higher operating costs.

Our operating costs are projected to increase due primarily to higher repair and maintenance costs as John mentioned, as well as higher natural gas costs offset by lower raw material costs.

With regard to the repair and maintenance costs, they're projected to be $75 million higher in the second quarter due to the maintenance projects already largely completed at Gary Works and Lake Erie Works.

Our average realized prices including the effect of a more favorable product mix are expected to be comparable to the first quarter, while shipments are projected to decrease slightly.

Our second-quarter results for our European segment are projected to decline compared to the first quarter due to higher raw material costs, primarily iron ore.

Shipments and average realized Euro based prices are expected to be comparable to the first quarter as decreases in spot market prices are expected to be offset by the positive effect of a higher volume of value-added shipments.

So we expect second quarter results for our Tubular segment to be comparable to the first quarter.

Shipments are expected to increase compared to the first quarter to support a higher level of drilling activity.

While average realized prices are projected to be slightly lower, mainly due to increased shipments of welded product.

Our operating costs are expected to decrease due to operating efficiencies related to higher production volumes.

And then our operating profit from other businesses is expected to increase approximately $30 million, due to a real estate sale expected to occur in the second quarter.

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

That ends the outlook, Dan.

Turn it back to you.

Thank you, Gretchen.

Lois, can you please queue the line for questions.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions)

Our first question is from the line of Brett Levy from Jeffries.

Hi, guys.

Pardon the background sound.

I'm at the SMA right now and I'll mute myself for the answer.

GOMA got a very favorable pension deferral and you guys obviously have the Stelco assets.

Is there any chance that you could potentially get some deferrals as well?

We currently actually have a -- operate under what's known as a Stelco regulation.

So, we have been, it's actually a beneficial regulation that was in place when we acquired those assets.

So, I think we already have an arrangement that's perhaps different than what the requirements of some others might be.

All right.

And the other question relates to the back half of the year.

A number of firms have said that there's higher potential for better profits in the back half of the year.

Are you guys thinking similarly and if so, why?

What was the first part of the question, Brett?

A number of other firms have said that the first half of the year is going to be lower and the second half of the year is going to be higher and I'm just wondering beyond the second quarter if you guys have some visibility?

Do you have the same sort of optimism and if so, why?

I haven't read anything that suggests much optimism.

But, no, our visibility isn't that far out.

We do our best to give everyone an outlook into the next quarter but the back half of the year depends largely on macroeconomic factors.

We see annual forecasts from World Steel, ASI, and those sort of things and a variety of different price decks that one could visit and see and -- but in terms of what we actually know through the latter part of the year, really nothing that would be of consequence that would be based on anything except conjecture.

I wish we could help on that.

But we're essentially expecting this to be a year of some stability and if things would improve in the latter part of the year, that would be great.

Our next question is from Shneur Gershuni from UBS.

Hi, good afternoon, guys.

Hi, Shneur.

My first question is related to the elevated maintenance expense that's occurring this quarter.

Last year was a pretty elevated year across the board and you're having an elevated expense this quarter as well, too, whereas we thought it was going to be more of a more normalized year.

How are you looking at maintenance right now?

Is it running according to plan?

Is this a quarter where it's seasonal, it's going to be higher this quarter, lower in the next few quarters?

If you can give us some color and flavor on how to be thinking about maintenance and whether it's going to be elevated again or whether it returns back to a normal level as we think out for the rest of the year?

That's a very fair question, Shneur, I'll do my best.

The way we measure it and we include the actual cost of projects that are not capital but just cost projects and include some measure of the inefficiencies that go with that.

So, we try to have a reasonably good measure of what the overall cost is.

And this second quarter, because we had two fairly sizable projects that need to get done for physical reasons, regulatory, environmental reasons, et cetera.

In all probability, the second quarter of 2013 will be the highest maintenance cost quarter for us.

Current scheduling indicates we'll probably have a couple of projects to do in the third quarter.

There would be lower cost, but still it would be a good size cost in the third quarter.

And then fourth quarter would be probably the lowest of the year and if that all would come to pass our overall cost for the year would still be somewhat below what the cost was last year These are big projects and when things need to get done on a hearth or on a top or on down covers or on box linings and we have to shotcrete for longevity, and we do other things with it.

We do the steel shop hoods at the same time.

We try to put all that together and do work on the strip mills at the same time.

There could be a pretty good cost.

There's no really good way to smooth that out at all.

When it comes it comes and we can plan it with some precision but we move it back and forth for physical as well as market reasons.

So, the best I could tell you is this should be the highest quarter of the year.

Could always change, but that's our current thinking.

Next quarter down a bit, still some work to do.

Fourth quarter should be the lowest of the year.

Okay.

And my follow-up question, I understand it's hard to speculate as to what's going to happen with respect to the lockout.

But that being said, I was wondering if you had something for us to think about in terms of weekly, monthly, or quarterly costs?

Sort of like what the operational costs it will be to run or related to the facility as we think about it if this extends for an extended period of time how we should think that it was going to impact earnings on a go forward basis?

Any metric you have would be helpful?

I'd just remind you that we went through this regrettably some two years ago.

I've forgotten exactly when it was now.

And I think when we get to the point where we are now where we essentially have the facility preservation program that we're implementing to make sure that the equipment is cared for properly and the coke batteries stay warm and the equipment is lubricated and exercised and we've got power where we need it, there's a certain amount of cost.

I think the last time we got that $45 million or $50 million a quarter, a large portion of which is depreciation and property taxes and pension charges and the rest is actual operating cost.

I don't know where we'll be this time but I'd use that as a rule of thumb.

That probably wasn't a bad number last time.

That's a number we used last time.

That's probably not a bad number this time.

This quarter, it would be only for part of the quarter but we were down for most of the quarter anyway on the blast furnace project, so it's going do be a carry cost quarter either way you look at it.

So I'd say $45 million to $50 million.

We hope that that's not a subject we have to discuss for a long time but that's probably where it would be.

Okay.

And one last final question.

Are there any maintenance covenants that we need to be thinking about when we think about your trailing EBITDA and so forth?

No, Shneur, we don't have any financial covenants that way.

We do have a fully loaded fixed charge coverage ratio in our credit agreements which have the effect if we don't meet that, that so long as we have maintained a certain level of liquidity on the facilities, I think it's $87.5 million, then there's no, it has no effect, so.

And just, Shneur, one more point while we're talking about it since you mentioned it.

We're not making steel today in Canada, regrettably, but we are selling steel in Canada.

Our finishing facilities, our pickle lines, our cold mill, and our galvanizing lines, one construction, one really high end auto line are running fine.

We're fulfilling all of our customers' requirements.

We have a plan to do that, plenty of inventory in the line to do that, so we intend to continue to operate commercially as we had before this unfortunate circumstance.

Our next question is from Dave Katz from JPMorgan.

Hello.

You guys have had impressively low SG&A for two quarters in a row.

What allowed the decrease and is the $145 million approximate level sustainable?

You know, offhand I'm at a loss right now trying to remember what the explanation was.

Well, I think if you look compared to the prior year, I think Serbia being out of that was in for part of the time, that would be one thing.

But also, we also have somewhat lower retire healthcare costs at this point that we made some changes in the plan last year, some of that would go through that number.

So I think we control that, our stock compensation expense has not been as high as it has been in prior years, as well.

So, it's an entire suite of things.

We're in a very tough, competitive market.

We're trying to watch our costs.

I don't know of any reason why we won't continue to chip away at that.

That's one of the subjects that I mentioned earlier that my distinguished colleague, Mario Longhi, is going to be focused on and our objective will be to keep driving it down.

With pension and OPEC piece of it, that's set at the beginning, unless there's some remeasurement of the obligation, that is steady now for the year.

Okay.

And then speaking of Europe, it was also the second quarter in a row in which the Company's European segment shipments were around 20% below production level, which is different from what you historically have run.

What caused that?

And is there any segment inventory that's being built there?

Well, we're not building a lot of inventory.

That's not our line of work.

The cash flow that Gretchen mentioned I think demonstrates that that cap is occasionally in front of outages, but that's not our line of business.

We're not making steel for the fun of it.

So, I think, and I'm not sure which figures you're looking at, but if you're saying we're producing below capability that may be true.

We're producing for the market.

We had had some slab semi-finished business in recent quarters that was reasonably attractive and that's not as positive now.

Dan will have to see what numbers we're talking about.

We're producing for the market, not building inventory and our utilization rate for the quarter was at 98%, I think.

So, we ran reasonably hard.

It was a good quarter shipping-wise and production-wise, so I don't think we left a lot on the table.

If we're not shipping anything there would be some slabs we didn't ship just because that business has not been as attractive to us.

I think we finished most of that raw steel and running at 98% is a reasonably good number.

We can go above that from time to time, but I think we didn't leave much on the table.

Okay.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Gordon Johnson from Axiom Capital Management.

Thanks for taking my question.

I just had a couple of questions.

Number one, with respect to your cash flow, if I look at the past three years we've seen a pretty significant decline on average from Q1 to Q4 in your cash balance.

And given that the CapEx appears to be back-end loaded, should we expect a similar deterioration in your cash flow through the remainder of this year and is that a concern?

And then I have a couple of follow-ups.

I think really the -- if you look at our working capital pattern, we do tend to generate more favorable working capital in the first and second quarters of the year.

And, so, that would -- just as a general rule, if you think of our business, the lakes freeze and we are really building inventory leading up to that and then consuming it in the first quarter and through into the second quarter.

So, that's really part of what you'll see there.

From a capital spending standpoint, this year we are lower in the first quarter.

Dan told you that we were looking at spending on the order of $750 million this year.

So, it is somewhat back-end loaded.

We do perennially underspend our budget.

We've had a history of doing that.

We're pretty good about managing it that way.

But I would say it's somewhat back-end loaded this year, relatively speaking.

And part of that is to some degree by design.

We try to live within our means.

And we only want to spend what we have and so, we need to cut back or delay it's not fun.

But we can usually do that within some tolerance and we leave ourselves some opportunity to do that if we can.

Right.

And then, I guess just as a broader question, but when I look at the overall capacity of the US steel market, it's been increasing since 2004.

And when I look additionally at the utilization rate of the steel mills in the United States, starting this year at 73%, now at 78%, clearly prices have been going down in the US, HRC, scrap, spot, et cetera.

Is there any concern from your perspective due to the cost to shut down plants, the overcapacity may intensify through the rest of this year and maybe weigh on prices further?

You know, the US is a net importing market and so I don't know how you define excess capacity when there's net importation and that was one way to define it.

I'm not -- I'm a little puzzled by your comment about capacity increasing since 2004.

I guess that's possible.

But there's also been some that's been taken out just within the last year and it came out of the statistics that the institute publishes.

I'm not sure that overcapacity in the US's problem, necessarily.

I think it would be much better market position if there was better demand, if we had policy that encouraged manufacturing and domestic consumption, and if our trade laws were respected and we weren't necessarily being punished constantly with low priced imports from countries that are conducting social policy not conducting business affairs, particularly in the higher end product ranges that I mentioned.

But just as a number you might take a look at.

I noticed this just late yesterday.

That the AISI statistics were out for March.

And I think this is the monthly report which has a pretty good sample of 75% or so of the reporting if I understand it.

And the raw steel production in the first quarter of this year was about 23.7 million tons, utilization rate of 77%.

Last year it was 25.6 million tons.

So, we're like 1.8 million, 1.9 million tons less raw steel production in the US this year.

And that could be that a facility or two that's out of production, but that actually should have less capacity in the market.

These are just statistics.

I can't tell you who it is.

But I have an idea.

And with imports in total, compared to last year about the same.

And demand about the same.

It's odd that we have the market position we're at.

It's a long answer.

But as a net importing country, the notion of overcapacity is one thing.

I think we have to have competitive capacity.

And I think in the US and North American market with the you raw materials access, ferrous, scrap, iron ore, coal, gas, we should be a competitive industry.

That's extremely helpful.

And then when I look at your Tubular division, very impressive progress on cost reduction there, down roughly $139 million overall.

Can you help us understand how you guys achieved that great achievement?

And then lastly, can you talk a little about the automotive market and what you're seeing there with respect to the puts and takes and if demand is still strong there?

Thanks a lot for the questions.

Sure, on the, make sure I don't forget this, on the Tubular side, I think we had some scheduled major maintenance projects in the fourth quarter last year.

In Fairfield hot mills and some things we do from time to time.

And so, I think that's one reason why costs were down quite a bit.

And then we've had some pretty aggressive cost reductions particularly in our welded mills where we're really if a bit of a fight there.

So, I think we've done good cost work, period, from period-to-period but also some non-recurrence of larger maintenance projects.

Gretchen?

On the substrate side they had some --

Oh yes, of course, we called that out separately.

But on the consumption of hot band from our steel group to our Tubular group which we transfer at a market price as best we can discern it for what we sell the same things to other people for.

That follows commercial hot band prices which regrettably as we all know has trended down.

On the auto market, I think the auto market for us has been quite good.

I think our sentiment on that is still positive and we derive that sentiment from talking to our customers and we supply almost everybody and they all seem to be optimistic.

I think the rates of growth may have leveled a bit.

But that's because they were coming from a very, very low base.

The auto market for us remains very positive, very favorable in terms of total volume but also in terms of progress on the high end products we like to supply them, to try to make sure the steel stays material of choice.

So, I would say for auto for us, we're quite positive.

It's a very important market for us and we hope it stays that way.

Our next question is from Luke Folta with Jeffries.

Hi, good afternoon, everybody.

Hi, Luke.

A question on Lorain.

Firstly, the investment that you talked about about expanding hot rolling capacity, did that actually expand the amount of output that you can get from that facility?

Number one.

And then as just a follow-up on that, the new agreement with Republic for the round supply agreement, is that displacing your internal production from Alabama or does that displace the production that would be coming in from the big third party supplier that you have to that mill?

Couple things.

I think the expansion on the, or the upgrade on the core mill, we'll give it some additional fire power and we'll have some additional capacity.

How much remains to be determined, but we'll have some additional capacity there.

And as I stated, it also allows us to have some better opportunities for having the right product mix that might suit us better in Fairfield.

So, it has really a couple of advantages, and then also we can make up to 6 inch which is coupling stock territory, so we have to have an alternative source of coupling stock which also gives Fairfield a little bit more to room to run.

That they've got heavier and bigger walls to do for offshore.

So, it really allows us to more fully utilize the new heat treat facility, finishing facilities, we put in our No.

6 line in Lorain.

So, it really rounds out the whole system in a really positive way and gives us benefits all the way through.

On the rounds project, if I remember your questions, I may have forgotten them, but we'll -- it will largely supplant commercially purchased rounds that we have been purchasing from a number of sources.

We'll continue to have a commercial relationship, though, with our outside sources.

We intend to maintain that just for good alternative supply sources.

We look to get the majority of the supply, assuming the project that Republic is building is completed and it should be very cost effective, close by, and much better ability to plan and schedule our mills.

Our existing suppliers have been excellent to work with and we expect to maintain a good relationship with them.

Did I miss anything, Luke, in my answer?

No, I think you got it.

I think you got it.

Thank you.

By the way, we do supply some rounds to Lorain from Fairfield which we'll continue to do in certain cases for material that makes sense.

Okay.

For the, you talked about your, the tests you're doing on your iron ore to figure out whether or not it can be used for DRI process.

Basically whatever you have to do to the iron ore to remove the silicon, is that a process that you think would materially alter the cost structure that you have for your iron ore mines there?

Well, the initial phase that I mentioned, Luke, that demonstrates scientifically in a laboratory setting that the ore body, the ore grade, can be ground to the point that the silica is liberated from the ferrous material, that's a scientific determination and we've determined that it can be.

Now we're going through a second stage process which is really engineering oriented to try to determine what the proper flow would be to move the material through the system, where we would put in additional flotation, what the cost would be, and the objective would not be to change the extraordinarily proficient cost structure we have now in any negative way.

It would really be to see if we could fit something in, additional flotation equipment most likely, that would allow us to liberate silica to an appropriate level for DRI pellets in a way that was consistent with our overall operating parameters at Minntac.

So, that's what we're looking for right now.

And we're going through that with an engineering study and we'll have more to report on that later.

Our next question is from Timna Tanners from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Good afternoon.

Hi, Timna.

So, want to delve into your project updates on page 12.

I thought those were really helpful.

Just trying to get a little better color.

You talk about living within your means and yet there's still the public information about your interest in bidding for TK, Alabama assets.

In your queue, you talk about the Keetac expansion and then there's all these other projects.

Can you help us understand the priorities or help us quantify some of the costs of some of these other investments on page 12?

Thanks.

Sure.

Well, just for the record, I don't think there's anything on any public record about the one matter you mentioned that we have said.

So, I think all we said in response to questions about a current M&A activity that we read about is that we are interested in things in our territory and our region and our markets, and there's been nothing else we said that you may have read.

Others can say what they want.

Keetac, I addressed earlier in my comments that we have the permits extended and we're still considering that project but in today's world it's not something that would allow us to live within our means.

The Clairton battery is done and is a $500 million-some dollar project.

We've had those numbers in the 10-K, so you can help yourself there.

Carbonyx, we talked about $250 million or so.

Something like that.

It will cost more than that when we're all done.

Most of that's already been spent.

There will be some more but not a whole lot, probably.

Really nothing to report on the iron ore projects, those are in the conceptual phase.

But these aren't boxcar number projects.

These would be tens of millions, twenties of millions, I think there could be some that are a little bit more.

But they would be relatively short, relatively low cost, and really high ROI.

This is taking largely finding ways to take additional ferrous material that we're not getting today in the ore processing process and put it back into a pellet.

These are extremely high ROI projects.

The Pro-Tec project we say is $400 million-some, financed at a joint venture level with our partner at Kobe.

And I think the other one's on the way through.

The Lorain DRI project we're not really anywhere near a project there, but most projects would be a million tons, 1.1 million might be the normal size range and I read in magazines in engineering and talk to engineering experts that the cost is $318 a ton or something like that.

So, you can do your multiplication.

That would be about where we are.

And the Lorain No.

4 mill, that's a good size project.

It's probably in the $100 million range we're done with the engineering, but it would be in that range.

The ERP has been going on for a long time, so we really don't try to capture that all at one time.

But it's not just a systems replacement.

It's really redoing an entire information flow system that had grown up for 50 years or more and year-by-year we chip away at it.

When we're all done, it's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

But we chip away at it year-by-year.

Okay, that's super helpful.

Sorry to be a pest.

But are you commenting on whether or not you're interested in Tissan or not at this time?

I think I gave you a comment on that, Timna.

We are interested in things that are in our market that make sense, but really nothing more beyond that.

Okay, sorry.

Yes, talk to you then.

Our next question is from Brian Yu from Citigroup.

Thanks.

John, my question is somewhat related to what Luke had asked earlier.

With your agreement with Republic, is that distinct or somehow related to your future plans for the aging blast furnace over at Fairfield Works?

No.

This is really Lorain, Republic, they're going to build an electric furnace which is, of course, totally their decision.

But we visited on that and seem to make good commercial sense and operating sense from our standpoint, so we're going to have a commercial relationship assuming the project's done on time and on schedule.

But really separate and distinct from any considerations we would have in Fairfield.

There would be some relationship just because we do move some material back and forth, but it really don't have any strategic, significant strategic relationship to what we may or may not do in Fairfield now or later.

Okay.

And then along those lines with Fairfield, any updates on thinking, the gas, the furnace, is that something you guys would have to address over the next couple years?

Probably the next couple years.

There's no urgency.

We've had -- the question really is the hearth and the lining and how long that will last and we've got pretty good thermocouple reads on it.

We've used all the right techniques to useabiliminite to work other things to try to make sure we keep the bottom in pretty good shape.

There's nothing imminent here, we've got plenty of time.

Couple years at least, two to three years, probably, before we have to make any kind of decision.

We may decide before that.

But there's nothing imminent.

Our next question is from the line of Mark Parr with KeyBanc.

Thanks very much.

Good afternoon.

How you doing?

I'm doing okay.

For a Tuesday.

(laughter) Hey, I am really intrigued with your comments about cost reduction initiatives, John.

I don't think I've ever heard you make such a spirited case for the opportunity.

And I know you're not really in a position to give any details, but is this something that could be a nine figure kind of savings for the organization over a period of years?

Let me do some quick math here, Mark.

Nine figures.

Oh, yes.

(laughter) We're in the billions of spend that we're talking about, Mark, and I think if you just roll the videotape back to 2002 and '03 and in connection with a new labor contract and the addition of National Steel, we had some cost savings programs were which of the same genre and have the same big impact, in a relatively short timeframe.

So, those circumstances aren't necessarily with us, but this isn't the first time through this and we made very substantial reductions in administrative costs and also in operating costs and huge increases in efficiency, logistics.

So, we've done this before.

Every year we have a CHIP, continuous cost improvement program, every year we have that and every operating unit in the Company has an objective.

It's in a big web based system.

They have an objective.

It's X cents per ton or it's X dollars per ton.

And that rolls up into a total corporate number.

It's in the single digits per ton or something like that when we had good natural gas opportunities, it's more than that.

But we're talking about something that we do that routinely.

This would be even more intense and focused than that to try to take a pretty big stick to things.

So, we've done it before and we're doing it again.

What the result will be remains to be seen.

But we thought it was worth just mentioning that but thanks for noticing.

Okay and I appreciate that extra color.

One other follow-up question, if I could.

You're talking about strategically you've become a lot more interested in consuming natural gas, using it as a fuel, and I'm just wondering if you're considering any opportunities to perhaps vertically integrate, given the massive amount of shale based opportunity that there is throughout the Midwest or throughout the country, actually?

It's a good question, Mark.

I guess the answer is yes, we are.

We're big gas users, we'd be one of the larger non-utility, non-chemical company gas users probably in the US and so we're buying a lot of gas, using a lot of gas every day and we do a lot of work to try to make sure our pricing stays within a decent zone.

But given today's opportunities, that's something we have been looking at and have to look at.

We have to be mindful again of living within our means and capital, but there are financial ways to do that but the depth and length of that market is one thing.

There are contractual ways to do that.

Again, there may be certain approaches and then there could be physical where you're taking a working interest or you have a production frame, or something like that.

So, I think we have all that on the griddle.

We've actually examined a few opportunities.

And I think it's something we'll continue to look at, subject again to availability of capital.

But in this world, natural gas, the leverage on that commodity is really, really good for a Company like us.

Your next question is from Sal Tharani from Goldman Sachs.

Thank you.

I want to know on the Lake Erie closure cost, the guidance you gave does not have the idling cost in there, is that correct?

Let's just say, Sal, that I think, Gretchen, you correct me if I'm wrong here, or Dan, or both.

The guidance we gave you was -- we considered that in the guidance we gave you.

We were not exactly sure how much is going to come out.

We'll ask your indulgence there.

But I think we had some consideration of what that might be when we gave you our guidance.

Okay, great.

Also, John, you are working on cost reduction.

But if I look at the estimates on iron ore prices over the next couple of years, general consensus is it's coming down pretty sharply.

And I was just wondering, in an over capacity steel world, that's probably going to drive the steel cost down -- steel prices down.

And you being of fixed cost on the steel prices, I'm just wondering how do you see the measures you can take?

Because we're at $600 plus steel price and you are -- you're struggling to make profit.

I just wonder what kind of cost reduction you can do to reverse this and it has to be pretty dramatic if steel price is going to come down to let's say $550 following an iron ore which most people think will be below $100 in a year, year-and-a-half from now?

Whether or not we agree with the figures, I think you're raising a very reasonable question.

The cost reduction is what I described earlier that my colleague, Mario Longhi, is going to lead.

And not just you through our normal programmatic cost reduction, but to take a team based approach to focus really on some very large items and try to take a very focused and hard-headed look at it as fast as we can because I think we want to stay ahead of that curve.

We need to make sure we drive our breakeven point down further than it is today.

And that's what our objective is, Sal.

So, I think you are pointing us in the right direction and we concluded that was something we had to do and that is why Mario is going to lead this project.

But I think that project is the response I think that I would give you to your question.

Our next question is from Richard Garchitorena from Credit Suisse.

Great, thank you.

Couple quick questions.

First, on nat gas, you mentioned that it was going to be a headwind in the second quarter.

Do you have any hedges in place and how should we think about pricing as it goes through the second half of the year?

And then a follow-up to that is what are you doing with your plans with respect to balancing out the use of nat gas with PCI where it is and balancing the cost advantages that way?

I'll let Gretchen maybe comment on your question about hedging.

But just on the latter point, as I think we've explained that we have furnaces that can take almost every injectant right now.

We've got the right equipment to do it.

We've got the deliverability for gas.

We have oxygen in a reasonable supply at most places now and coke oven gas in some places as well.

So, we try to get given what we have the optimum level of injectant and the optimum level of iron reduction for the lowest cost.

And so, we just fine-tune that as we go, not every day necessarily, but I think each furnace is not exactly where it needs to be, and as they go through maintenance projects up and down, you have to put more coke in, et cetera.

But those that are running steadily, I think we're about as close to having the optimal injectant levels as our operators can make, that they'll continue to refine it.

What I think you may be alluding to is that with injection coal where it is, and we've been able to get some really good coal for reasonable price to inject and that's got better BTU for it, that if you get to really high levels of gas it really is probably better to have more coal at that point and a little bit less gas because the gas begins to cool the reaction.

We don't get the same level of combustion and reduction we'd like, so we're have scientists who are ciphering all that out right now, and on balance we have little more coal now than gas which might have been your question.

Just on the hedging in general, we do a couple things.

We sell our steel products forward with either fixed or firm or some firm-ish kind of a price and that has in it 5 or 6 MMBtus in every ton.

So, we generally try to buy some of that forward as those sales contracts are entered to try to lock that margin.

Not every ton but some significant portion of it.

And we also have gas we buy for electricity generating.

We try to make sure we lock a good bit of that in.

And then we do just some opportunistic purchases, and this is almost all physical.

We maybe do some paper, Gretchen can comment on, but we do some opportunistically where we have points that if it goes below or above we might take an action, and that's not a huge part of our overall volume.

The majority of our gas is still being purchased at the market on a spot basis.

We're using 120Ms, 130Ms per year in North America, so you divide that by four and take in account whatever the price change is and that gets you the kind of number we're talking about.

That's pretty close.

I think we try to systematically buy forward, but relatively short periods of time, maybe 12, 18 months, some up to maybe as long as three years.

But nothing out real, real far for 100%.

So, we have a fair amount of exposure, I don't know, John maybe 30% or so --

Could be in total.

That would have to be in that rolling program.

But our costs that we're saying, we'll have some gas cost increase if you take my -- make it simple, 130 and divide it by four, that's -- 120 divided by four.

Trying to make it easy on myself.

30.

You say $0.50 an M or something on that.

Right, that's a quarter magnitude.

Plus whatever we already purchased in advance so you get somewhere in that zone.

$10 million to $15 million, probably.

Next question is from the line of Charles Bradford from Bradford Research.

Good afternoon.

Hi, Chuck.

Could you talk a bit about Lake Erie and whether you have much inventory between it and the Hamilton plant, the cold mill and the Z line and how long can they keep going?

Those are I think, Chuck, two different questions.

The first, how much inventory, I don't know how much inventory we have.

We have inventory in position to make sure that our customers and our customers of those lines in Canada can be well taken care of.

We supply both Canadian and US customers.

Our picking lines are running with plenty of hot roll in front of them to keep them up and running.

We'll be able to supply our cold mill in Hamilton and our two galvanizing lines there.

There isn't a time limit here.

We can move hot band from, in all probability, Great Lakes just given the geographic location, could be elsewhere, into Canada pickled or unpickled.

We could pickle it there, it'll go to the cold mills.

So, we expect to be able to serve our Canadian customers in the Canadian market who are really good customers who we work very hard to get close to and to continue to develop our share there.

We expect to serve those customers without missing a beat.

We're going to get them what they need on the terms we agreed without missing a beat.

That's our commitment, our plan.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next question is from David Lipschitz from CLSA.

Good afternoon.

Hi, David.

So my question is auto is running sounds like extremely well, back to almost back to where we were in the mid-2000s.

We know non-res is well below where it was.

What changes dynamics especially of consensus of riot, like Sal talked about on iron ore and things like that, that changes the dynamic of supply demand?

Do we need to cut supply because non-res is such a low level, it's going to take I think several years, I believe it's going to take several years for this to improve.

So, what changes anything in the one year type of time frame?

It's hard for me to predict any one thing or for us to predict any one thing.

I think there's a couple macro things that are worth looking at.

You touched on a couple of them.

Steel is a regional business to, still to some degree.

But there are macro, more global influences that we have to live with.

An earlier commenter referred to a global overcapacity.

There's probably some of that in Asia, probably some of that in Europe, and there are of course other traditional exporting countries that steel industries were built for that reason with currency policies that are designed to promote that, that their National governments support.

Does that have an effect on our market?

Undoubtedly.

And how much, I don't know.

I think the global supply system, not that there are tons coming from Shanghai harbor right to Chicago but it affects other supply and demand relationships in Europe and in South Asia which then affects the West Coast and then it affects the Gulf Coast and affects the Midwest.

So, it ripples through the system over time.

Raw material structures, ferrous, I guess the iridex number is 130 or so right now, probably something like that, a little bit more than that.

Yet there are others that are saying it should trend downward.

That would not be supportive necessarily of a more vibrant steel markets from a price standpoint.

Scrap, which is so important in the US, has been fairly languid.

Mostly sideways down, occasional up.

But that's not been supportive.

And on the demand side, on the domestic supply side as I mentioned earlier, there's actually less supply from domestic production in the market in the first quarter than there was last year.

So, demand as we see it, our order rates have stayed relatively steady.

The auto market's been relatively good, appliance market relatively good.

Tin plate relatively positive.

The intermediate service centers, those that hold inventory for a living must have inventories at a relatively low level.

We'll see what the statistics tell us.

But I really think it would take something that would change their mindset about optimism for the future, and that would be better economic news.

And I think as long as we continue to undershoot GDP and undershoot employment, everybody is understandably cautious and nervous and no one wants to buy more than they absolutely need.

So, that's a long answer to your question but I don't think it's any one thing.

I think it's great that the residential housing is moving in the right direction by everything we read, not that we've seen a whole lot of that but some.

But nonresidential is going to take our while.

In our construction business, which is studs and agricultural and roof panels and things like that, we've done okay.

But not great.

I think we look forward to those customers having better years this year and hopefully better years next year.

So, those are all macro factors.

I don't think there's any one that's going to put us exactly in the right place.

But when I look at the supply demand, when I look at our order book, I look at this year's prices versus last year's, we're really $100 some below where we were last year which is lower than it was the year before that.

That's not a very sustainable place.

I'm not sure what it's going to take.

Better I think better demand and more balanced global steel market would certainly help, and I'm not sure how soon those two things are going to happen.

So, does that mean somebody has to take a stand and take supply off in order to fix this or does everybody sort of suffer for the next six, nine months and hope for the best?

I understand your cost initiatives and all that type of stuff.

I'm not saying you, I'm just saying in general, does somebody or the industry as a whole have to take a stand and say we're just not going to produce and say you know what go find your steel somewhere else and if you can't then come back to me but I'm not going to produce at these levels?

I can't really comment on anything like that.

We can only do what we do and control what we control.

We produce to an order book and we produce at a cost that gives us a margin.

If there's no margin, we probably wouldn't produce it.

But I really can't speak to what, there's no industry activity like that.

We're all making, at least we're making individual decisions.

And we'll make decisions we think are right and we've been saying for a decade now that we're going to produce what our customers order and that's all we produce.

We're not going to overproduce.

And what they produce what they order, if we have a decent price we'll take it.

If we don't, we won't.

That's our plan.

Having said that, our US facility has been running at pretty high levels.

I think we're, in the first quarter, we were, if you take out, we were at 82%.

If you would adjust for the outage at Hamilton, we're in the 90%s.

And that's probably where we are today.

Our final question is from Aldo Mazzaferro from Macquarie.

Hi, John and Gretchen.

How are you doing, Dan?

Nice to hear from you, Aldo.

Yes, same here.

Most of my stuff's been answered.

I just had a couple of quick ones.

Can you tell us what's going on in the raw material market in Europe that would cause higher prices in the second quarter?

Is that some lag effect that you have?

Good question.

It's one that I asked.

(laughter) There are supply demand dynamics in that market.

Then there's China.

And there's the Black Sea and all that.

We have very strong competitive suppliers and we're competitive at the same time.

But I think we were in a -- just looking at our position we were probably quite competitive versus the market in the late fourth and early first quarter, and I think we're moving back towards the markets with increases we indicated we would expect to incur in the second quarter.

I think our prices are still quite competitive, but we have, and as some know this pretty clearly, that particularly in that market we have where we have some excess pellets from time to time that are positioned in a place where we get them in deepwater.

We've moved some material into Slovakia from North America, not huge amounts.

It's meaningful to our business there and establishes I think a somewhat more competitive founding for us to have a discussion about the next quarter, so we'll continue to do that just to make sure that we've got something to work with.

But I think it's just the market and the market was coming, we were coming back to the market, and we try to make sure we maintain our advantage for as long as we can.

Gretchen, anything you want to add?

No, I think that's it.

That's great., Just another quick one on the Lake Erie plant.

Can you say what your run rate was shortly before the work stoppage?

And second question on that, do you pay the workers during a work stoppage or is it similar to a strike where they don't get paid?

I don't think we are paying them during the work stoppage, no, Aldo.

And I -- just before we took the furnace down for the project, I think we were running relatively full.

That would have been at 90% or 80% or 89%, so I'd say right around 90% would probably be a close enough number.

We were running pretty hot at that point.

But that would have been through most of the first quarter and then the furnace came down for this project.

Okay.

Thank you and that does conclude our questions for today.

I'd like to thank everybody for joining us.

We certainly appreciate your interest.

And we'll be back again in July.

So, thank you.

Thanks, everybody.

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