Nucor Corporation

Company type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: NUE S&P 500 component
Industry	Steel
Predecessor	REO Motor Car Company
Headquarters	Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Key people	Leon Topalian (chairman, president, & CEO) Steve Laxton (CFO)
Products	Steel Rebar
Revenue	US$34.71 billion (2023)
Net income	US$4.525 billion (2023)
Total assets	US$35.34 billion (2023)
Total equity	US$22.12 billion (2023)
Number of employees	c. 32,000 (2023)
Website	nucor.com
Footnotes / references [1]

Nucor Corporation is an American company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, that produces steel and related products. It is the largest steel producer in the United States and the largest recycler of scrap in North America.^[1] Nucor is the 16th-largest steel producer in the world.^[2] Along with Commercial Metals Company, it is one of two primary suppliers of rebar used to reinforce concrete in buildings, bridges, roads, and infrastructure in the U.S.

Current operations

To supply its mills, Nucor uses electric arc furnaces and continuous casting to melt scrap steel as opposed to blast furnaces to melt iron. In 2023, the company produced and sold approximately 18.5 million tons of steel and recycled 18.4 million tons of scrap.^[1]

None of Nucor's mills are unionized and the corporate culture is opposed to trade unions.^[3]

Nucor's operations include the following:^[1]

• Steel mills
  • Bar mills - 15 mills that manufacture rebar and related products, with annual capacity of 9,560,000 tons.
  • Sheet mills - 6 mills that produce rolled steel, with annual capacity of 13,800,000 tons.
  • Structural mills - 2 mills that produce beams, pilings and heavy structural steel using continuous casting, with annual capacity of 3,250,000 tons.
  • Plate mills - 3 mills that produce steel plate for uses in barges, bridges, heavy equipment, rail cars, refinery tanks, ships, and wind towers with annual capacity of 2,925,000 tons.
• Steel products
  • Vulcraft/Verco - producer of open-web steel joists, joist girders and steel decking for the structural support systems of buildings. Annual joist production capacity is 745,000 tons and annual deck production capacity is 560,000 tons.
  • Tubular products - Nucor Tubular Products, 8 facilities that produce steel tubes and pipes.
  • Rebar fabrication - Harris Rebar, 70 facilities that fabricate, install and distribute rebar products for buildings and infrastructure. Annual capacity is 1,736,000 tons.
  • Piling products - Skyline Steel, a supplier of steel used in infrastructure foundations in North America.
  • Nucor Cold Finish - The largest producer of cold finished bar products in North America. These facilities use hot rolled steel bar to produce cold drawn bar using a process known as drawing. Total annual capacity is 1,069,000 tons.
  • Steel mesh and fasteners - Bolt-making facility in Indiana produces screws, bolts, and nuts. Annual capacity is 75,000 tons. Mesh facilities have annual capacity of 128,000 tons.
  • Buildings - Brands are Nucor Building Systems, American Buildings Company, Kirby Building Systems and CBC Steel Buildings; produces pre-engineered metal buildings. Annual capacity is 360,000 tons.
  • Insulated metal panels - Brands are TrueCore, CENTRIA and Metl-Span. Supplies the warehousing, distribution and data center sectors.
  • Nucor Warehouse Systems - Produces and installs custom designed steel racking systems for data centers and warehouses. Annual capacity of 168,000 tons.
  • Overhead doors - 2 facilities for producing overhead doors.
  • Towers & Structures - Produces metal poles and other steel structures for utility infrastructure and highway signs. Annual capacity of 10,000 tons.

• Raw materials
  • Scrap recycling and brokerage operations - The David J. Joseph Company operates 6 regional scrap recycling companies with annual capacity of 5,824,000 tons. It also is a global broker for scrap and related metals and operates a network of rail cars dedicated to the transportation of scrap metal.
  • Direct reduced iron operations - 2 plants, one in Trinidad and one in Louisiana, for manufacturing DRI, used as a substitute for scrap metal. Annual capacity of 4,500,000 metric tons of material.
  • Natural gas production programs - properties in the Piceance Basin in the Colorado Western Slope; used as a hedge against natural gas prices, which affect mill operating costs.
  • Universal Industrial Gases - produces air separation units for use in Nucor's steel mills.

History

After REO Motor Car Company, founded by Ransom E. Olds, sold its operations and initiated liquidation proceedings, a group of dissident activist shareholders, noticing the existence of a usable tax loss, successfully challenged the liquidation in a proxy fight in September 1955 and forced REO to take over a tiny nuclear services company called Nuclear Consultants, Inc. in a reverse takeover.

The company was renamed "Nuclear Corporation of America Inc." and relocated to offices in the Empire State Building in New York City. The organization's attempt to recast itself as a nuclear industry services company was unsuccessful, and it followed the example of other companies in the 1950s and 60s by attempting to become a conglomerate, moving its headquarters to Phoenix, Arizona. It made several acquisitions, including the Vulcraft Corporation, a steel joist manufacturer located in Florence, South Carolina. Vulcraft was founded by Sanborn Chase, who died at an early age, leaving the company to his widow. Nuclear purchased Vulcraft from Chase's widow in 1962 and hired F. Kenneth Iverson as general manager. In March 1965, the company again filed for bankruptcy. Iverson, head of the only profitable division, took over as head of the company due to lack of interest in the job from others.^[4]

Iverson reorganized Nucor around its only profitable business, the steel fabricator Vulcraft. All other businesses were either sold or liquidated.^[4]

In 1966, the company moved its headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina to be closer to its main Vulcraft plant in South Carolina.^[5]

In 1968, unable to get favorable steel prices from American manufacturers and unhappy with the imported steel available at the time, Iverson, a metallurgist by training, extended Nucor vertically into steelmaking by building its first steel bar mill in Darlington, South Carolina.^[6][7]

The company purchased an electric arc furnace, which was far cheaper than the traditional steel blast furnace with a $6 million loan secured by all of the company's assets. Production delays and staffing problems resulted in losses, but earnings soared in 1971 and 1972.

In 1972, the company, recognizing that it was now misnamed, adopted its current title, Nucor Corporation.^[4] That year, it became a public company via an initial public offering.^[8]

In 1988, the company opened its building products division.

In 1989, Nucor opened a facility in Crawfordsville, Indiana, the first mini mill in the world to produce flat rolled steel using thin-slab technology.^[9][10]

In March 2000, a joint venture, owned 47.5% by Nucor, 47.5% by BlueScope, and 5% by IHI Corporation was formed to license Castrip technology.^[11] This technology allowed for continuous casting of sheet steel directly from molten steel without the need for heavy, expensive, and energy-consuming rollers.

Acquisitions and divestitures

Closures and new investments

List of CEOs

• F. Kenneth Iverson (1965–1996)

• John Correnti (1996–1999)^[46][47]

• H. David Aycock (1999–2000)

• Dan DiMicco (2000–2012)^[48]

• John J. Ferriola (2013–2019).^[49]

• Leon J. Topalian (2019–present)^[50]

Environmental issues

In 2000, Nucor agreed to spend $98 million, including $85 million for new air pollution control equipment, $4 million to monitor and reduce pollution in communities near its plants, and a $9 million civil fine to resolve allegations by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Environmental Protection Agency that it had not adequately controlled the emission of toxic chemicals into the air, water, and soil in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah. The settlement was "the largest and most comprehensive environmental settlement ever with a steel manufacturer."^[51][52]

In 2016, the company unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit to block the Environmental Protection Agency from adopting a plan to control visible pollution in Arkansas.^[53]

In 2023, the company signed an agreement with ExxonMobil for carbon capture and storage of up to 800,000 metric tons from its direct reduced iron plant in Convent, Louisiana.^[54] The plant had been criticized for its emissions.^[55]