Iron & Steel Mills
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 260 iron and steel producers in the US process iron ore, scrap metal, and other raw materials into semi-finished steel products. Products include iron ore, steel sheets (cold or hot rolled), strips, bars, plates, pilings, and rails. Major customers include fabricators, manufacturers, intermediate steel processors, and service centers that convert semi-finished steel into finished goods. Some companies are vertically integrated and may own facilities to produce raw materials and/or finished steel products.
Competition From Alternative Materials
Depending on the end use, steel products compete with goods made from concrete, aluminum, plastics, wood, and composites.
Competition From Imports
Imports account for about 25% of the US iron and steel market.
Industry size & Structure
The average iron or steel mill employs about 320 workers and generates about $453 million annually.
- The iron and steel mill industry consists of about 260 companies that employ 83,000 workers and generate about $118 billion annually.
- The industry is highly concentrated and dominated by large companies. The top 20 companies account for 89% of industry sales.
- Some companies are vertically integrated, and may own facilities to produce raw materials and/or finished steel products.
- Large domestic steel manufacturers include Nucor, Cleveland-Cliffs, Commercial Metal Company (dba CMC), Steel Dynamics (SDI), and US Steel. Some large companies have foreign operations.
- Construction accounts for about 30% of net iron and steel shipments, followed by service centers (24%) and the automotive industry (14%).
- Indiana accounts for an estimated 24% of total raw steel production, followed by Ohio, 12%, and Pennsylvania and Texas, 5% each, according to the US Geological Survey.
Industry Forecast
Iron & Steel Mills Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Mar 23, 2025 - EPA’s Deregulation Agenda
- The Trump administration's pro-tariff, deregulation agenda is playing well among US steel producers, statements from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) attest. The EPA’s March announcement that it’s reconsidering 31 regulations, including several air emissions rules that impact the US steel industry, was enthusiastically welcomed by steel makers. “AISI strongly supports EPA’s reconsideration of emission limits on integrated facilities, taconite ore processors and coke plants,” said CEO Kevin Dempsey, adding the regulations are onerous, costly, and unnecessary. The industry also strongly supports the 25% tariffs the administration has levied on US steel imports, including the closing of a loophole under Section 232 that allowed foreign producers to avoid tariffs. Tariffs on steel imports imposed by the first Trump administration led to increased production and higher steel prices, albeit temporarily, and the creation of iron and steel manufacturing jobs between 2017 and 2019, another short-term boost.
- China’s output of crude steel fell 1.7% in 2024 compared to 2023 to a five-year low on weak demand from its ailing property sector, Reuters reports. As the global leader in steel production and a big exporter of the metal, China has an outsized impact on the global supply and steel prices. Amid weak domestic demand last year, China's steel exports reached their highest level since 2015, sparking global trade tensions as producers in Japan, India, and elsewhere argued that a flood of cheap Chinese steel products was hurting local manufacturers, according to Reuters. President Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of 10% to 20% on steel imports to the US and 60% on goods from China. The US is a net importer of steel. While China is not a significant source of steel imports to the US, Canada and Mexico combined account for about a third.
- To reduce their carbon emissions, steelmakers and other industrial companies may someday rely on heat-storing batteries to fuel their operations, The Wall Street Journal reports. Investors are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into startups developing heat batteries (thermal batteries) that use renewable energy to heat blocks, rocks, or molten salt that release heat to power industrial processes. California start-up Antora Energy is developing batteries made of carbon blocks that discharge heat on demand at temperatures as high as roughly 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit, per WSJ. Antora and other heat-battery startups say thermal batteries can cheaply store days' worth of renewable energy using such an approach. Currently, industrial processes like cement and steelmaking burn fossil fuels to generate heat, with heat released from industrial processes accounting for about a fifth of global energy use and roughly 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to WSJ.
- Producer prices for iron and steel mills fell 11.1% in December compared to a year ago after falling 6.7% in the previous December-versus-December annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Producer prices for steel and iron mills have tumbled 40% from their peak in January 2022, when demand for metal surged amid the post-pandemic rebound in manufacturing. Employment by iron and steel mills grew 1.7% year over year in January while average wages at primary metals manufacturers, which includes iron and steel mills, rose 2.6% in February to $29.67 per hour, BLS data show. Iron, steel, and ferroalloys industry after-tax profits sank 71.3% in the third quarter of 2024 compared to Q3 2023 and were down 62.7% from the previous quarter, according to Census Bureau data.
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