Steel Dynamics, Inc. has notified its customers for cold rolled, galvanized and painted sheet products that, until it can make alternative hydrogen gas supply arrangements, it is suspending order entry for these hydrogen gas-dependent, value-added products.

The company was informed by Air Products Corp., its hydrogen gas supplier, that it would be unable to meet its immediate supply commitments to SDI due to the temporary outage of its New Orleans hydrogen gas production facility in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Further complicating the situation is a planned two-month shutdown of Air Products’ Sarnia, Ont., plant as a result of feedstock curtailment by Nova Chemicals.

"While we have some on-hand supply and have already arranged for some alterative sources of hydrogen gas, we wanted to inform our customers of the potential problem as soon as possible," stated Keith Busse, SDI's President and CEO.

"We plan to adjust our product mix to optimize our existing supply of hydrogen gas, taking into account critical needs," said Busse. "However, although we hope that there will be only minimal impact, there could be some loss of value-added margin over this period of time."