Earnings Labs

Steel Dynamics, Inc. (STLD)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 20, 2015

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Transcript

Executives

Management

Marlene Owen - Director-Investor Relations Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Theresa E. Wagler - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations Chris Graham - President of New Millennium and Vice President of Steel Dynamics, Steel Dynamics, Inc. Russell B. Rinn - Executive Vice President-Metals Recycling

Analysts

Management

Tony B. Rizzuto - Cowen and Company, LLC Matthew James Korn - Barclays Capital, Inc. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch Philip N. Gibbs - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc. Aldo Mazzaferro - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc. Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC Justine B. Fisher - Goldman Sachs & Co. David A. Lipschitz - CLSA Americas LLC Matt Murphy - UBS Securities Canada, Inc.

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Steel Dynamics' Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. Please be advised this call is being recorded today, October 20, 2015 and your participation implies consent to our recording of this call. If you do not agree with these terms, please disconnect. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Ms. Marlene Owen, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mrs. Owen.

Marlene Owen - Director-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Manny. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Steel Dynamics' third quarter 2015 financial results conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and will be available on the company's website for replay later today. Leading today's call are Mark Millett, President and Chief Executive Officer of Steel Dynamics; and Theresa Wagler, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We also have our leaders from the company's operating platforms, including Dick Teets, President and Chief Operating Officer for our Steel Operations; and Russ Rinn, President and Chief Operating Officer for our Metals Recycling Operations; and Chris Graham, President of our Fabrication Operations. Please be advised that certain comments today may involve forward-looking statements that by their nature are predictive. These are intended to be covered by the safe harbor protection of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements, however, speak only as of this date today, October 20, 2015, and involve risks and uncertainties related to our metals business or to general business and economic conditions, which may cause actual results to turn out differently. More detailed information about such risks and uncertainties may be found at the Investor Center Advisory Information tab on our Steel Dynamics' website and our Form 10-K Annual Report, under the captions Forward-Looking Statements and Risk Factors, or as applicable in subsequently filed Forms 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Mark. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Marlene, and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. 2015 continues to be an interesting challenge. But as often said, in adversity there is opportunity, and I think at least for those that have prepared for it. Significant industry shifts have…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And with that, our first question is from Tony Rizzuto of Cowen & Company. Please go ahead.

Tony B. Rizzuto - Cowen and Company, LLC

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

Thank you very much. Hi all. Got a couple questions. First of all... Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Tony.

Tony B. Rizzuto - Cowen and Company, LLC

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

Hey Mark. Good results in a very challenging environment. My first question is how should we think about your fourth quarter metal margins with all the moving parts. Scrap has plummeted again and there has been more broad-based selling price weakness. How should we think about that? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: There certainly continues to be import pressure, Tony. And as I said, imports are continuing to recede. They have sort of almost month-over-month through the year. I think with the one exception, July just popped up a little bit. We do believe the trade cases will further improve that situation, although the timing of that is a little uncertain. I think, Dick can speak to the trade cases in a second, but the timing is kind of extended out to the end of the timeframe. And so, when the impact of that occurs is, I guess, anyone's guess. I do think margin expansion in the fourth quarter is tough, but I think there is certainly a positive pricing environment going into 2016, and with a flat scrap arena I think there is margin expansion certainly in 2016. Whether that occurs or not in the fourth quarter is doubtful.

Tony B. Rizzuto - Cowen and Company, LLC

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

Okay. It's very helpful. Dick, do you want to add something there that Mark indicated or...? Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: All I could add is that, looking at the license data for August and September, there is a couple of bad actors that sort of are thrusting a few of their extra tons this way, but quite a few of the countries have been moderating their tons. And so, the slope of the imports have been decreasing through the second quarter and third quarters. So, I think the trade cases are getting the traders' attention, even though preliminary determinations have been pushed off into the December timeframe. I do believe that overall, things are improving in the marketplace. So, they will begin to make some difference not necessarily whole lot in the fourth quarter but rolling into 2016.

Tony B. Rizzuto - Cowen and Company, LLC

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

Okay. That's very helpful, both of you. Thank you. My second is, I was surprised to see the magnitude of sequential decline in shipments at Butler. I think they were down about 11.5% sequentially and then in rail, which was down about 14% and obviously the imports affecting HRC shipments. Was there anything else going on at Butler during the quarter, I just want to check on that? And then rail shipments have been improving quite nicely over the past three quarters, four quarters and I was a little bit surprised that they were down, but just wanted to get your view of that and how we should think about going forward here? Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: Let me first – I'll address the rail. Actually from a rail perspective, I think railroads adjusted orders a little bit. October is usually when they start placing orders for the next calendar year. So, I think that they were really looking forward to what was going to happen in 2016. I could tell you that we already surpassed the production of our Continuous Welded Rail in the third quarter that we did in the total year of 2014, and that we expect to ship 265,000 tons of rail in all of 2015, which would be a record for us. And so, I think things are going well there. And we'll also look at shipping 150,000 tons of Welded Rail. So, again, extremely well. So, I think the rails everything is healthy and fine there. At Butler, again things turned down as basically the spot market on hot band is not a lot – there wasn't that much out there and the stuff that was out there was at prices that we just weren't interested in it.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is from Matthew Korn of Barclay's. Please go ahead.

Matthew James Korn - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclay's. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning everybody. Thanks, for taking my call. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Matthew James Korn - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclay's. Please go ahead

So, let me ask, Mark, with imports and shipments both falling apparently, how much of the incremental order softness is really coming from imports taking additional market share, if that's actually happening for a certain products in certain regions? And how much of it is this – that are these lower global prices that are causing the deflationary expectations really setting in among buyers? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, it is truly difficult to discern whether the issue is underlying demand or just total excess inventory levels. From our perspective, underlying demand still remains in many areas and I won't say is robust and phenomenal but it certainly hasn't deteriorated by any great degree. There is a significant inventory out there. You see that in the recent MSCI data and unfortunately that data doesn't reflect material that is at the port. Obviously, a lot of the material is hot rolled coil and that's where we're seeing the principal softness. The customer base, I think, as I said earlier, is just stalled. They were expecting a price decline here this month. Obviously scrap came off $50 or so and they are essentially waiting sort of stabilization or at least transparency as to where that level ends up. And again, as I said earlier, we believe the scrap market is somewhat bottomed and should be essentially flattish in the weeks ahead, certainly not going up, but sort of soft sideways.

Matthew James Korn - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclay's. Please go ahead

Okay. Let me follow-up with Graham on the Fabrication division. Of course, very good result for the quarter. Now, at your recent analyst event you mentioned that kind of region-to-region you're seeing some fluctuations in demand levels, good in the South, out West, maybe some less good out in the East. But, you are seeing overall order rates in line with normal seasonality. Now this quarter I saw year-over-year volumes did end up falling pretty substantially. Is that a slowdown in project, certain (32:26) activity or is that competitive pressures or the downstream customers, are they showing the same type of kind of stalled out expectations on price? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Chris?

Chris Graham - President of New Millennium and Vice President of Steel Dynamics, Steel Dynamics, Inc.

Analyst · Barclay's. Please go ahead

That's more of a competitive pressure in our regional basis. We see the overall joist market still has grown. We've had one or two plants in Midwest and East where there is a more of a concentration of producers. To your point, Texas and California still remain, far and away, the most robust markets that we're participating in. The Midwest and the Northeast did not grow at the rates that the West did and the Southwest, and hence we seemed to feel a little more competitive pressure in those areas this year than historically we've experienced.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Evan Kurtz of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, good morning, everyone. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hello, Evan. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: First question is on SBQ. It looks like your Engineered Bar shipments were up, which I thought was a pleasant surprise given that the pure play SBQ producer in the industry got in for some severe kind of demand shipment weakness in the third quarter. Could you give us a little bit of color on what might have happened there, were you able to take share, was it end-market exposure? What caused that? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think, obviously that arena has seen some softness recently. For us, we've seen a little deterioration in our book, energy-related heavy equipment agriculture, but that has been largely offset by the expansion into the lower diameter SBQ. It would have been nice for that expansion to be increasing volume over last year, but in this tough environment it's kind of replacing that and keeping things relatively flat. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great, it's helpful. And maybe a question for Ross. What are you seeing as far as scrap collection behavior at these sorts of price levels particularly after this last October drop? Is there money to pay peddlers to go out and collect, are they exiting the business? How are smaller feeder yards faring in this environment?

Russell B. Rinn - Executive Vice President-Metals Recycling

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Evan, thanks for the question. As we look at the world we live in, certainly these lower price drops have created some problems, particularly for the obsolete grades of scrap, and we're seeing some reduced flows in some areas of the obsolete scrap collection. Again, if you can just put in perspective, a year ago, one year ago, the prices that we were able to get for scrap out in the marketplace was double what it is today. And so, over the year's time, our market price has been cut in half. So certainly, that's put financial duress on many of the dealers and collectors out there and it's also made it, in some cases unaffordable for people to collect scrap and bring it in. So there has been some impact particularly on the obsolete grades and we have seen some instances where if you look at the American metal market, over the last six months or so, you've got some folks that have exited the business and we also are seeing the phenomenon of some areas where people are walking away from the accounts because they are underwater. So, again, this reinforces the bottoming out of the scrap market. And again, as Mark said, I think we're looking relatively flat from my perspective, going forward, for the next several months.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Yu of Citi. Please go ahead.

Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks. Good morning. On the... Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead

Hey. On the Fabrication business, I know the results there have been doing quite well and you've got a 21% operation margin there, and in the press release you talked about benefits from lower steel cost. Is there a way to try to quantify what the benefit is of lower steel cost or maybe another way, is there a longer term sustainable operating margin percentage that we can think about for the Fab business? Theresa E. Wagler - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So, Brian, as we've said, I guess, probably the last three quarters in a row, because each quarter has been a record quarter, we're trying to help you with rationalizing that number because, to your point, we're actually operating at what we'd consider record spreads today and that's been the – Fabrication has been a beneficiary of rapidly decreasing scrap – or steel prices. As that moderates, they're actually now bidding on jobs that don't have kind of real steel prices with real products pricing as well, which they're starting to get some pressure on that side of the equation. So, yes, the third quarter probably shouldn't be what you use for a through-cycle margin for Fabrication. I believe the operating income per ton for them, which is kind of how we looked at it in the third quarter was $285, EBITDA per ton was actually I think like $308 per ton. That would suggest that's very much on the high side of the equation and numbers that we've not seen here Q4. But for that to be in the $200 range probably on an operating income per ton isn't something that is unfathomable for a through-cycle type number. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And I think it should be pointed out that, again, through-cycle, the future is certainly not like it would be if you look at it on a historical basis. That industry has consolidated dramatically. We have a national footprint there having – sort of restarted three of the CMC assets, we got 34%, 35% market share in joist and there are essentially only three principal players there. And so that will bode well and the future through-cycle earnings are going to be certainly much, much better than the past. On the decking side, market share has been lower and typically you kind of sell a ton of deck for a ton of joist, give or take a little bit, but we've been around that 24% market share percent in deck. Obviously the acquisition of the CSi assets will act as a catalyst to boost that up and we'll get parity, we do believe, quite quickly between joist and deck. So, it's an exciting business. And again, my hats off to the team. They made some decisions several years ago and they build upon that and it's a good platform for us.

Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead

Okay, great. And then the follow-up question separately is just on your utilization rates here, as you mentioned, it was quite high, and probably close to 90% in the third quarter. Say your competitors are looking to idle some of their blast furnaces, does this open up some opportunities for you guys to maybe grab a little bit more market share and keep that utilization rate at high levels in what is typically a seasonally soft fourth quarter? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I would say, absolutely. I think there is a potential. Again, we got a phenomenally low cost, highly variable cost structure that we can take advantage of. The rationalization should allow greater utilization of other assets that are operating. And also, we still expect imports to continue to come back. So it should be a good market environment for us.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Timna Tanners of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Yeah. Hey, good morning. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Timna.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

So, just wanted to dig in a little bit more and I know you said on the call in your commentary that this isn't a demand problem, it's a problem of imports. But there have been some recently reports from other companies in the industrial sector in particular, in some construction highlighting potential weakness. So I just wanted to see if you could give us a little bit more color of what you are hearing from your customers, a little more granularity please? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, if you look at the principal markets, Timna, obviously a couple of them are pretty stagnant and weak, energy remains slightly poor as is mining, off-road and agriculture. But in other areas, we'd not necessarily assume any great weakness or deterioration. Automotive continues to be strong I think. We have intelligence there through our scrap management programs and relationships, the stampers are still stamping and cars are still being produced. So we don't see anything to get overly concerned about there. Truck, trailer, material handling, it's a peak year for us, but it's – no near-term change over the next quarter. Manufacturing for us is okay. That would be perhaps one area that could be under pressure given the strong dollar, but we're not necessarily seeing that yet ourselves. And we still remain incredibly optimistic on the non-residential construction side of our business. We see it through New Millennium Building Systems for sure. The beam markets are okay, a little under pressure, but again the imports have been picking up there. But from a standpoint of our customers, I spent some time at METALCON last week, which are principally sort of value-add coated and pre-paint customers. The building products folks suggesting that 2015 that they're up 12% year-over-year over 14%, and they see continued strength through 2016. So I wouldn't say I'm doing cartwheels down the hallway, but we're optimistic that things are – they're certainly not deteriorating.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Okay. That's helpful. I guess I also just wanted to ask in light of that downstream strength that you've been highlighting, is that still a preferred use of cash and cash generation has been quite strong. Any updated thoughts on the opportunities there? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I think just at a high level, from a cash allocation perspective, we've positioned ourselves over the past year to make sure that we've got some dry powder and a strong leverage profile to take advantage of, I think, core strength opportunities that are going to befall us over the next 12 months. We expect to maintain the positive dividend profile that we've seen in the past. Obviously, we boosted that 20% early in the year as a reflection of the step-up cash flow generation from Columbus, but we would hope to see that being positive going forward. And we'll continue to repay debt as appropriate to comfortably stay within our 3 times net leverage.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Phil Gibbs of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Philip N. Gibbs - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Good morning, Mark, Theresa, Dick. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: Good morning. Theresa E. Wagler - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning.

Philip N. Gibbs - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead

And Russ, and Chris, you're all there.

Russell B. Rinn - Executive Vice President-Metals Recycling

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead

They are all here.

Philip N. Gibbs - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead

I saw that about 60% of the ferrous scrap that you sold was to your own steel mills. I think historically that's been around 50%, so a pickup here in the quarter. Should we expect that to continue right now? Is that more of an imperative for you to get that that percentage up in this market or was it a just bit of a, just one quarter, and we shouldn't read too much into it?

Russell B. Rinn - Executive Vice President-Metals Recycling

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Well, Phil, I'd tell you that as, again, the one thing that you've got to keep in mind is whether the scrap is at steel mills or it's in our scrap yards, SDI owns the scrap. So it is certainly in our best interest to make sure we utilize the working capital, we've got already in place to do that. So, again, I think the function of what we supply internally versus externally is really market related and again demand related based on what the demand of not only our internal mills are, but external mills, so it naturally will flow depending upon where that demand is.

Philip N. Gibbs - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. I appreciate that. And then on the energy side, are your major sheet buying customers particularly in the South giving you any indication when things may pick up for them in terms of their buys? I know they're probably a couple quarters away, but what are they telling you in terms of timing when they may look to procure a bit more steel. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, Dick, you may have a different impression, but I would suggest that it's quite a ways out. There's some business in sort of larger transmission type projects out there, but from the standpoint of just basic energy pipe, ERW type line pipe, it's going to be quite a while. We kind of have to come up and the inventory have to dissipate before anything meaningful happens. Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: That's right. Again, the Columbus mill, as you just pointed out though, we ran the hot mill at about 83%, 84% utilization. So the tonnage isn't bad. Need to say the sales prices on where we want it, but the ton has been okay. A lot of that had to do with the increase in number of customers you pointed out, the 90-plus new customers, most of them were trying to direct forwards through the cold mill and the galvanizing line and so forth. We're doing quite well with new automotive enquiries and so forth and we've gotten some new platform work already for 2016. We've received another automotive company platform work last week. I'm very pleased with that. That doesn't necessarily translate to shipment for the fourth quarter of this year, but we continue to be awarded work for next year. But we're going to continue to try…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Aldo Mazzaferro of Macquarie. Please go ahead. Aldo Mazzaferro - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Hi. Can you hear me? Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: Yeah. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We can hear you, Aldo. Aldo Mazzaferro - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Oh, great. Sorry, I thought – okay. So this might be a question for Theresa. Your average selling price actually went up a few bucks sequentially. And I would bet there's the shift between the flat roll being a little softer in the mix and the bars being stronger and the rail stronger had a mix effect. Can you break out a little bit what the mix effect was in the quarter on a per ton basis? Theresa E. Wagler - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Aldo, we purposely try not to get into that granularity by products for obvious reasons on the average selling price perspective. I'll tell you that it is mix related. As you will notice, when we talked about it for – Butler is a great example as their hot band actually decreased, the mix shifted much higher to the value-add side, which actually impacted their average selling price very positively. And you just saw that shift throughout the product chain for us in the steel perspective. We feel that that is pretty sensitive commercial information, so it's hard for us to share that. I apologize. Aldo Mazzaferro - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: I get it. That's okay. Thanks. A follow-up question then on the – Mark, on your comments about margins being tough to improve in the fourth quarter. If scrap goes sideways from here on an index basis, wouldn't there be some – at least a little bit of a lag effect, where you'd see a declining usage cost in the fourth quarter? And if that's true, would that imply that you're thinking junk prices might go down in the fourth quarter for you? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I guess, my comment is just marginally in general. There's certainly a flow through of scrap, not quite as steep as we'd like to see it because operating rates aren't maxed out there. But I guess my concern is what is the relative rate of decline of our scrap input cost relative to product pricing, and the product price environment is a little (53:42) right now.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Jorge Beristain of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Good morning, Mark, and everybody. Mark, could you provide any insight through your legal team as to why we saw this delay in the determination of the countervailing duties on hot roll sheet by commerce department? That's my first question. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I'm going to pass that over to my legal Washington expert, Mr. Teets.

Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Thank you. Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: Well, I think really all the delays are due to the fact that I think there is about 135 cases between countervailing and dumping that have been filed since June, and it's just a massive amount of data that's being collected from everybody and it's an overloaded situation. So everything has been pushed back to basically the latest dates available to them for making their preliminary determination. So when we had filed, we knew the earliest dates and we knew the final dates and I think just about everything pointed towards the later dates being the timeframes in which to expect results. So I don't think anyone is really surprised. And I do believe mostly the traders expected it too and hence why in some of the higher levels of imports coming in from some of the countries that are still being maintained, because they expected not to be caught at this time with the shipments coming because they knew that trade cases determination is going to occur until the later dates, or they were quite sure of that.

Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Right. But those duties are retroactive to the point of filing, are they not? Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: No. No, no, no. Only if there was a – only critical circumstances would be determined and that hasn't been determined in any cases. So they only are as of the point of the date of the determination normally.

Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Got it. Thank you. My other question is for Mark, and maybe he could just comment as to what you are hearing maybe in Washington or just at an industry level feeling. But is the ball kind of back in the court of the U.S. steel companies? Is Washington or industry kind of being forced to look to itself and say, what can they do to fix the issue and it kind of comes back to consolidation. I guess, my question is, can the industry in your opinion support another round of large scale consolidation or are we kind of technically at the point where electric arc furnaces has, most end clients have two or three options within a certain radius and imports, same thing on integrated. And I'm just wondering if you could just talk about, can the current issue in the steel industry be fixed by for the consolidation. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, firstly going to your comment of Washington, I think generally the – there is political support for our industry. I think there's definite support and you see that in the new language going through the TPP in the customer's bill. Is I am right, Dick? Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: Right. The TPA. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: TPA, sorry. So there is a positive stance there. Some of the margins on the duties that we've seen particularly on pipe (57:33) perhaps a little disappointing to some. But given the cost structure, the strength of the dollar, devaluation of the won, devaluation of the ruble, lower oil price, they're starting off at a very low basis. But generally, our impression or our thought belief is that trade cases…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Evan Kurtz of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Just another quick one on trade cases. Just thinking with all these delays, have you been able to amend the initial filing with some of the incremental data, I mean, (60:11) prices are really falling off the cliff since you initially filed a lot of these cases, is there any way to incorporate that into the process so that the DOC comes up with maybe a stronger margin? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, there is no mechanism to allow that to occur. It's the window in which the case was originally filed upon is what the data that's submitted and that's the data you live with. Hindsight is always 20/20, Evan. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. That's helpful. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from John Tumazos of Very Independent Research. Please go ahead.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

Thank you. Do you believe the scrap market will recover enough for you to earn a good return on your recycling assets or should we expect that you consolidate carry less inventory and otherwise reduce the assets employed? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: John, I would tell you, I think if you look back in history with the exception of the 2000s, we are pretty much back to levels where scrap prices were created and historically going back in the 1900s, last century to put it that way. Dick was looking at me like I'm crazy. Sorry. Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: 1901. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: 1901. But, again I think the scrap business was a viable business at those levels in the not too distant past. The business itself has just got to readjust itself to the levels of the market that the market is going to last. Does that mean further consolidation or people dropping out of the business, it could. But again the flow and the amount of scrap generated in the United States is relatively stable. And so, that flow whether it comes through OmniSource or it comes through somebody else is likely to be there. So, again I think we just got to look at a new reality in our business and deal with it.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

But when you say that the recycling industry in general is under extreme financial stress... Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: All you have to do is look at the American metal market and see the guys dropping out weekly.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

So, there is certainly – it doesn't happen overnight, but certainly material rationalization is going to happen over the next two years, three years. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think so. Yeah.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Justine Fisher of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Justine B. Fisher - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Good morning. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Richard P. Teets - Director, EVP-Steelmaking, President & COO-Steel Operations: Good morning. Justine B. Fisher - Goldman Sachs & Co.: So, it seems that the service centers are a big problem in terms of demand at the moment, because demand from some of the end markets are still pretty good, but inventories are pretty high, we just don't have the buying that it seems that we need to have in order to get things going again. And so, what do you guys think that service centers need to see in order to get them buying again? I mean, is it just the working down of (63:18) inventories in that fit or do service centers need to get much more bullish on overall demand themselves or do they need to see international prices stabilizing before they say, okay, we'll buy domestically instead of looking to those imports? I mean, what do you think the service centers are looking for? Because it seems as though that that's one of the big demand problems because everyone talks about end markets; the end markets seems to be generally fine. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I think, I can almost start saying, yes, yes, yes and yes, to a whole a lot of those items. But I think there's been of course a general shift from all the end markets. Everybody has, I think taken a breath from levels of inventories that they intended to carry until they have this assurance that there is not going to be another drop. And so,…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from David Lipschitz with CLSA. Please go ahead. David, your line is live.

David A. Lipschitz - CLSA Americas LLC

Analyst · CLSA. Please go ahead. David, your line is live

Sorry, had the mute on. So I guess, my question is, the thesis over the summer when all the trade cases were coming was, prices are going to rally as soon as those things come because people are going to get nervous about prices rallying. In the meantime, prices have fallen pretty precipitously. When the trade cases are – the duties do come whatever they are, how quickly do you think people are going to react to it, because obviously people didn't react right away when the duties were announced to begin with – where the trade cases were filed? Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I think it's difficult to quantify. I would suggest that given that the pricing environment or the cost structure environment out there today of the importing countries, we're not going to see this kind of a precipitous drop in imports and sort of a nice exponential hockey stick improvement in pricing. I think I believe that it's going to be slow erosion of imports and a slowly an increasing sort of margin expansion pricing environment. But to quantify – to put dollars on it, I don't think we're that good.

David A. Lipschitz - CLSA Americas LLC

Analyst · CLSA. Please go ahead. David, your line is live

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And the next question is from Matt Murphy of UBS. Please go ahead.

Matt Murphy - UBS Securities Canada, Inc.

Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead

Hi. Thanks for taking the question and apologies, if I missed it. Just wondering on the CapEx budget, you've got around a $110 million on your investments at Columbus, let's say a $120 million sustaining. I'm just wondering if the rest in particular, if you're going to hit the top range of guidance, is that more maintenance or is it actually investments in the business? Theresa E. Wagler - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: From a maintenance perspective overall our business, we tend to look at it as about a $120 million for the year. And with paint line addition which is a $100 million that gets you to about $220 million. So, the bottom range is $250 million, so that would be like $30 million worth of additional type items top ranges is $300 million. If we were to get that top range of $300 million, that's going to be a margin enhancing, productivity enhancing, efficiency enhancing in other words, it will be higher return type investments, it will not be additional maintenance expense – expenditure, sorry.

Matt Murphy - UBS Securities Canada, Inc.

Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead

And is the decision on that basically predicated on market conditions or are you whittling down some ideas? Just wondering if you see any areas that you think are attractive even in a soft market. Theresa E. Wagler - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, actually the finalization of our capital plan doesn't take place until November, so that was just a real high level preliminary number, because they know everyone wants to see that going into trying the model 2016, as we get to the first quarter call, we'll have that refined, but yes, there are numerous projects that are on the table and everyone is buying for theirs to be able to be approved.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Millett for any closing comments. Mark D. Millett - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, just for those that are remaining on the call, thank you for your support. We diligently try and do our best each and every day. Many of us are shareholders, in fact, all our employees are shareholders in one way or another and we will strive to create value each and every day. And to any customers on the call certainly appreciate your support and we will continue to track diligently for you. And to all our employees, thank you each and every one of you for phenomenal job this past quarter, this past year and we all emphasize, be safe each and every minute that you're right there. Thanks folks, have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.