During a conference call to discuss the company’s second-quarter earnings, Millett confirmed earlier reports that the company is buying Kentucky Electric Steel, which closed earlier this year. 

Millett told analysts that the acquisition is "looking favorable,” but has yet to be finalized. 

Located in Ashland, Ky., Kentucky Electric made merchant bar quality and special bar quality flats for the automotive leaf spring suspension and cold-drawn converter markets, among others. 

Millett said the mill has a rolling capacity of around 200,000 tons. Although the plant has melting capabilities, the intent is to restart rolling operations only, he said. The facility would roll billet sourced from SDI's Steel of West Virginia subsidiary and its Roanoke, Va., facility, helping to raise the capacity utilization rates at those two locations.   

Also during the call, Millett discussed SDI’s plans for its newly acquired Heartland facility in Terre Haute, Ind. 

The facility, which was acquired in late June, has a cold mill, a galvanizing line and a pickling line. Under previous ownership, it had focused on galvanized products, but had run at low utilization rates, Millett said. Going forward, the plan will be to bring up its utilization, with a particular focus on light and wide flat-rolled gauges. 

In fact, he said the company plans to shift production of light-gauge flat rolled from its Butler, Ind., plant to Heartland, freeing up Butler for other types of production. 

“Lighter gauge products require more time to run, and Heartland is better equipped to make these gauges,” he said. 
He said Heartland’s cold mill has a width of 72 inches and a nameplate capacity of around 1 million tons, but with its focus on up lighter gauges, the plan is to run at around 800,000 tons annually.  

It will process substrate from Butler, which will provide around 300,000 tons annually. The remainder is to come from outside mills, Millett said. 

For the quarter, which ended 30 June, Steel Dynamics posted a profit of US$362.4 million, on sales of US$3.1 billion. In the same quarter last year, the company reported a net income of US$153.9 million on sales of US$2.4 billion.

"During the second quarter, we saw improved demand and product pricing across the entire steel platform, resulting in record quarterly steel shipments and significant margin expansion," Millett said.

"While we saw improvement from each of our steel divisions, the increase in earnings was principally driven by our flat roll operations, as continued strong demand supported meaningful volume and margin expansion.  Domestic steel demand remained strong from the automotive, construction, and energy sectors, while general industrial demand continued to grow."