Metallus stays profitable, but net income dips

Metallus, the Canton-Ohio electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker formerly known as TimkenSteel, totaled more than $328 million in net sales in the fourth quarter of 2023, with the net income derived from those sales standing at just $1.3 million.

That net income figure is down by nearly 95 percent from the net income of $24.8 million achieved in the third quarter of 2023. However, the result is an improvement on the fourth quarter of 2022, when then-TimkenSteel suffered a net loss of $33.2 million in the wake of an incident that resulted in a fatality and temporary furnace shutdown.

For the full calendar year, Metallus, a recycled-content steel producer, attained a net income of $69.4 million, representing a 6.6 percent improvement from 2022, when its net income was $65.1 million.

“Our continued profitability was driven by strong aerospace and defense demand coupled with increased base pricing,” Metallus President and CEO Mike Williams says.

On the same day it announced its results, Metallus also announced a defense industry-related agreement to upgrade its production assets to supply more steel to the United States Army.

The agreement calls for up to $99 million in funding from the U.S. Army to support a project aimed at bolstering the Army’s mission of ramping up artillery shell production in the coming years.

The use of artillery weaponry and ammunition by Ukraine in its defense of a Russian invasion has entailed a consistent drawing down of artillery shells in the U.S. and other nations that have supplied munitions to Ukraine.

Metallus says its contract ties into a project designed to enable the development of additional capacity to help fulfill increased global demand for artillery shells. That new capability is expected to increase throughput of high-quality bar-based steel products used in artillery applications, the firm says.

“Metallus is honored to expand our commitment to the defense sector, reliably providing high-quality specialty metals for critical applications," Williams says. "With this funding, we intend to further optimize our assets to meet the Department of Defense’s heightened demand while reducing our carbon footprint.”