Good morning and welcome to Nucor's first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise and today's call is being recorded. After the speaker's prepared remarks, I will provide instructions for callers wishing to ask questions. I would now like to introduce Chris Jacoby, Director of Investor Relations, you may begin your call.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to Nucor's first quarter earnings review and business update. Leading our call today is Leon Tepalian, Chair and CEO, along with Steve Laxton, President and COO, and Jack Sullivan, CFO. Other members of Nucor's executive team are also here with us today and may participate during the Q&A portion of the call. Yesterday, we posted our first quarter earnings release and investor presentation to Nucor's IR website. We encourage you to access these materials as we will cover portions of them during the call. Today's discussion will include the use of non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking information within the meaning of securities laws. Actual results may be different than forward-looking statements and involve risks outlined in our Safe Harbor Statement and disclosed in Nucor's SEC filings. The appendix of today's presentation includes supplemental information and disclosures along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures. So with that, let's turn the call over to Leon.

Thanks, Chris. And as always, I want to begin by recognizing our 33,000 teammates across the company for their continued commitment to working safely safety is and will always remain our most important value in a new core that means more than the physical safety of our team it encompasses the mental health of all of our teammates as well with may being mental health awareness month it's a great time to reinforce that commitment and as we move through 2026, we are firmly focused on making this the safest year in Nucor's history. Before turning to our financial performance, I'd like to briefly highlight a few leadership updates. Effective March 1st, Jack Sullivan was promoted to Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Executive Vice President. Since joining Nucor in 2022, Jack has demonstrated strong leadership, deep financial acumen, and a clear understanding of Nucor's culture and how to create long-term value for our shareholders. Congratulations, Jack. We also announced that Dan Needham, our Executive Vice President of Commercial, will retire in June after 26 years with Nucor. I want to thank Dan for all his sacrifice and leadership during this time and wish he and his family the very best in retirement. Turning to Nucor's first quarter financial results, we generated EBITDA of approximately $1.5 billion and earned $3.23 per share. This is an excellent start to the year and a significant increase compared to the fourth quarter, driven by strong performance across all three of our operating segments. Consistent with our capital allocation framework, we returned $254 million to Nucor shareholders through dividends and share buybacks during the quarter, while also reinvesting $661 million into the business. Roughly 40% of CapEx in the quarter went towards our new sheet mill in West Virginia. Operationally, our team has performed incredibly well during the quarter. One of the clearest indications is the record shipments our steel mills achieved for the quarter. At 7 million tons, this was the highest quarterly shipment volume in Nucor's history, reflecting strong execution across our 26 steel mills and growing contributions from recently completed projects. Equally encouraging is the momentum evident in our backlogs. At the end of the first quarter, our steel mills backlog was up to 4.7 million tons, a 20% increase from year-end and the highest level we've seen since the second quarter of 2021. In steel products, our backlog grew 9% from year-end with increases across all major product groups. I want to thank our operating and commercial teams for a strong start to 2026 and for putting Nucor in a position to deliver even better second quarter results for our customers and our shareholders. Turning to trade policy, the combination of Section 232, Steel Terrace, and Trade Remedy orders have been effective at reducing imports, with that trend accelerating the second half of 2025 and continuing in the first quarter of 2026. Import share of the U.S. finished steel market declined from over 22 percent in the first quarter of 2025 to approximately 15 percent this quarter more recently we were pleased to see the administration reaffirm the 50 percent 232 tariff on steel and implement important changes to how derivative steel products are treated specifically applying tariffs to the full value of those products this action simplifies administration and enforcement while closing a key loophole that had allowed for undervaluation and circumvention. Taken together with existing trade remedies, these measures are working to ensure a more level playing field for domestic producers. We appreciate the administration's recognition of the importance of a healthy and competitive American steel industry. That said, we remain vigilant, and there is still work to be done. As USMCA discussions continue, there is an opportunity to address ongoing challenges, including steel subsidies provided by the Canadian government and the use of North American channels as backdoors toward domestic markets, putting U.S. manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage. We also continue to advocate for policies that prioritize the use of American-made steel in critical sectors such as energy, infrastructure, defense, and shipbuilding.

With that, I'll turn it over to Steve for an update on the growth initiatives in market outlook steve thank you leon and thank you all for joining us this morning our team continues to make great progress on our new sheet mill project in west virginia and we'll see key milestones achieved in 2026 we're entering the final phases of construction and we'll be sequencing commissioning of operations throughout the year beginning with the pickle line in the second quarter by the end of the year we expect commissioning inspecting and testing of all equipment across the mill to be complete. Following commissioning, our priority will be to operate safely and reliably as commercial shipments begin ramping up in early 2027. We will be increasing production and advancing product development throughout 2027 and 28, with capacity utilization and product offerings building steadily over time. Once fully ramped, Nucor West Virginia will supply some of the cleanest and most advanced sheet steel in north america with expanded capabilities to better service automotive and consumer durable markets this positions nucor to grow market share in the midwest and northeast two large sheet consuming regions where nucor is relatively underweighted today in addition to west virginia we have several major capital projects under construction or ramping up and we're making meaningful progress across all of them starting with projects under construction in our towers and structures business we're building two new utility towers facilities one in indiana and one in utah in indiana we expect to be fully operational in the third quarter of this year and in utah we expect to reach full production by mid-2027 we're also advancing the construction of a second galvanizing line at our berkeley county sheet steel mill in south carolina once complete this line will expand our ability to service automotive customers in the southeast equipment commissioning is planned for the middle of the year and we expect production to begin in the fall in addition to projects under construction and commissioning we have recently completed several growth projects that are advancing their strategic and commercial plans as expected in the bar group our new micro mill in lexington north carolina and our new melt shop in kingman arizona were both ebitda positive in march In the sheet group, our new galvanizing line at Crawfordsville, Indiana was also EBITDA positive in March, and we expect to commission the paint line later this year. Finally, our Alabama Towers and Structures facility is expanding its customer base, improving production, and on track to reach EBITDA positive run rates by the end of the summer. Before I turn the call over to Jack, let me share how we're thinking about the current market environment and new course place in these markets. Already the established industry leader, producing roughly one out of every four tons of steel in the United States and having unparalleled range of product offerings in our downstream businesses, Nucor continues to find ways to grow. After achieving approximately 6% growth of shipments in 2025, we expect shipments to grow by more than 5% in 2026. A confluence of factors are enabling this. First, consistent with our comments on Nucor's fourth quarter earnings call in January, overall demand remains relatively stable. There are pockets of strength, such as data centers, energy, border fence, and infrastructure. And there are some markets that have remained softer for now, including consumer cyclicals, traditional office, heavy equipment, and agriculture. Taken as a whole, we expect domestic steel consumption to be stable, with overall demand remaining flat to up two percent for 2026. Second, as Leon highlighted, enforcement of trade laws is stabilizing what might have happened in the past where patterns of flooding dumped imports shocked the supply picture. And third, execution by our team with the investments we've made. Nucor is well positioned with the portfolio we've developed to service market segments that's exhibiting particular strength right now. A few examples include, we can supply 95% of the steel needed to build a data center. We're the leading manufacturer of HSS structural tubing. They're the primary building materials for large sections of the border fence. Our industry-leading pre-engineered metal buildings and insulated metal panels offering help to accelerate our customers' speed to market, which is increasingly valued in today's landscape. And as the leading domestic producer of beams, plate, and bar, we are an essential material supplier and enabler for the construction of pipelines, LNG terminals, bridges, manufacturing facilities, and power generation and transmission infrastructure. Nucor's national reach, coupled with our strength in raw materials, steelmaking, and downstream products, provides supply chain integration, improved reliability, and operating efficiencies that no other North American producer can match. We have the right capabilities and team for this moment, and we're always looking ahead to assure Nucor remains well-positioned as markets evolve. With that, I'll turn it over to Jack for a closer look at our first quarter financial results and our outlook for the second quarter. Jack?

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter, Nucor generated net earnings of $743 million, or $3.23 per share, exceeding the midpoint of our guidance range by nearly 50 cents. The beat was largely due to higher volumes and higher margin product mix after some weather-related shipping delays early in the quarter the team delivered a very strong march with our sheet plate and rebar groups all setting quarterly shipment records while structural steel shipments reached levels not seen since 2021 turning to the segment level results for the first quarter the steel mill segment generated 1.1 billion of pre-tax net earnings, more than double the prior quarter. Volumes and average selling prices increased across all four product groups, with sheet and structural being the largest drivers. Metal spreads also expanded across all formats. In steel products, we generated pre-tax earnings of $285 million, up 24% from the fourth quarter. Volumes increased 13% on stable pricing with our tubular group setting a new quarterly shipment record. Strong demand related to the border fence was a significant contributor, and we expect that to continue for the next several years. We did see some margin compression due to higher steel input costs flowing through, but we expect this to ease as the year progresses and realized pricing catches up. And in our raw materials segment, we generated pre-tax earnings of approximately $45 million compared to $24 million in the prior quarter, reflecting higher DRI production following two planned outages in the fall. Pre-operating and startup costs totaled $108 million for the quarter. As a reminder, we expect these costs to trend higher as we work our way further into 2026 and toward the completion of our West Virginia sheet mill. Moving to the balance sheet, our strong investment grade credit profile is the foundation of our capital allocation framework. It allows us to execute our strategy of disciplined investment to grow our business while still providing meaningful cash returns to shareholders. We ended the quarter with approximately $2.5 billion in cash and liquidity of $3.2 billion. Total debt as a percentage of capital sits at 24%, and our credit ratings remain the strongest of any U.S.-based steel producer. Capital expenditures totaled $661 million for the quarter, and we remain on track with our $2.5 billion dollar capex estimate for the full year while this level of investment remains elevated as we finish several remaining growth projects it is moderating compared to recent years and as our capex is trending down our cash from operations is moving up that combination produced a meaningful increase in free cash flow for the quarter and we expect this trend to continue we also returned over 250 million dollars to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases or roughly 34 percent of quarterly net earnings consistent with our long-term track record we remain committed to returning at least 40 percent of net earnings to shareholders on an annual basis. Looking ahead, Nucor's financial strength, highly variable cost structure, and business diversification position the company to invest in growth, reward our shareholders, and navigate through economic cycles. Turning to our second quarter outlook, we expect higher consolidated earnings with improvement across all three operating segments. In steel mills, we expect stable volumes and increasing metal margins the margin improvement reflects higher realized pricing partially offset by rising raw material costs within the segment we expect our sheet and plate businesses to be the largest contributors in the sequential increase in steel products we expect higher volumes and stable pricing in some of our longer lead time products like fabricated rebar and Joyston deck, margins have been impacted by rising substrate costs but are poised to improve as we work through backlogs and start to realize higher average selling prices. In raw materials, we expect higher earnings driven primarily by improved realized pricing for DRI. Taken as a whole, the earnings uplift across all of our operating segments will be partially offset by higher corporate and intercompany profit eliminations upon consolidation. As we look further into 2026, we continue to expect that Nucor's earnings and cash flow will trend significantly higher than 2025 as we benefit from strong non-residential construction and infrastructure demand and begin to see returns from the investments we've been making these past few years.

With the hard work and dedication of the new core team we are confident in our ability to create value for our customers and shareholders and with that we'd like to hear from you and answer any questions you may have operator please open the line for questions thank you to ask a question please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now if you change your mind please press star followed by two when preparing to ask a question please ensure your device is unmuted locally our first question comes from bill peterson from jp morgan your line is now open please go ahead yeah hi good morning uh congratulations a strong quarter uh congrats to the to the new

management appointees and thanks for the details thus far um on the west virginia sheet know which you provide some granularity i was hoping to get a bit more color on the phasing of commissioning the strategy through year end and maybe what to expect for the next few years i mean i guess specifically how long do you expect the commission phases to be complete when do you expect to the construction of the galv line to be complete? And I guess, how should we think about when you're gonna start production as well as the customer qualifications and then any sort of thoughts on utilization in the next few years as well? Appreciate that.

All right, Bill, well, good morning and thank you for the question. I'm gonna kick it off and maybe just stay at a high level and then ask Steve Laxton or Noah to jump in with some more of the details around the commissioning of that mill. But look, I wanna begin with a backdrop of our most important value, which is the safety, health, and well-being of the entire Nucor 33,000 team member family. Today, we sit at 65 of our divisions are reportable free at this point. It is an amazing accomplishment, and I want to thank each and every one of our teams who are delivering exceptional results, and you will see and continue to see those amazing results continue as we push into the quarter. You know, more specifically, Bill, And as we think about West Virginia, and we touched on it in the opening remarks, I and our team could not be more excited about the capability set that that mill will bring for Nucor for our customers, our shareholders, the value that's going to be generated and created in the largest sheet-consuming region of the United States. um johnny jacobs who is our vice president gm and his team have done a incredible job and as you know the work uh that sits behind the scenes during construction and startup is is tireless it's thankless and it's uh it is a just a really really challenging environment and those individuals

um have done an amazing job so thank you to our entire west virginia team and again i'll let uh steve and noah maybe update some more on the details yeah happy to do that thanks for the question bill and i'll just echo what leon said about the uh the team in west virginia they've had a remarkable safety record i'll lead off with that they've only had one reportable in all the years of that project outstanding safety culture and leadership from that team and um in terms of right now bill we're about 85 percent of the way through construction so we still have worked having said that we're starting and so we'll start with the pickle line and then we'll bring up the cold mill and and uh proceed through uh one of the galv lines the automotive quality galv line will be the next thing we start up after that but in commissioning uh ultimately we'll get to uh commissioning the milk shop and and um and hot mill uh later in the year by the end of this year we'll be done with all the commissioning we're on track and we'll start moving up through bill what you'll see there is a very intentional and deliberate plan from that team in our entire sheet group. NOAA and the sheet group have really designed an excellent plan to bring that mill up in a very coordinated and intentional way. And so by the time we get to the end of 2027, you ask about utilization rates and markets are going to dictate some of that. So I might hedge here just a little bit. It'll depend on market conditions somewhat, but we'll be operating somewhere near that 50% of capacity by the end of next year. And so that team is poised. We're going to make great progress over the next year and a half and into 2028 even with product development and continued penetration.

Great. Thanks for that. And Steve, obviously, we've been working with you as a CFO, and now we have Jack, so congrats for both of you. Maybe the next question for Jack is your new role in CFO.

How should investors think about any potential shifts in strategy relative to recent years or you know anything you would continue and you would change or just any sort of insights on how you're considering your new role yeah thanks bill i appreciate that um you know i step into this role with a lot of humility and gratitude to serve this great company and the 33 000 teammates who make it such a special place preceding me in the role are four highly accomplished new core cfos and and really my goal is just to carry on their long-standing tradition of doing three things really well, maintaining a healthy balance sheet, investing for the future, and generating attractive returns for our shareholders. And Steve Laxton, who's sitting right here to my right, did a terrific job during his four-year tenure, funding $15 billion in growth investments, returning $9 billion dollars to our shareholders and improving our credit profile along the way. So that's a pretty impressive trifecta right there. And as the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So Bill, no major shifts from that winning strategy. But what I would say is I think I bring a fresh set of eyes, a strong understanding of this business and how we make money, and just a lot of excitement to accelerate what is already one of the most compelling stories in American manufacturing.

Thanks for that, everyone, and congrats again on the quarter.

Thanks, Bill.

Thank you. Our next question is from Alex Hacking from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. Thanks for the call. A couple of questions. I'll ask them together if that's okay. Firstly, on the sheet side, the new slow and steady approach to price sites in this cycle that we're seeing right now? Could you maybe discuss the rationale a little bit there and how the customer feedback has been? I mean, I hear only good things from customers, but I'm curious. And then secondly, on structurals, you know, demand are very, very strong. Imports are down, but don't seem to be down that much. Is there any particular subsegments that's driving structurals to be so good? Thanks a lot.

Yeah, I'll kick it off, Alex, and good morning, and thanks for the question and again keep it a little broader base but the question you ask around sheet's an important one and uh there's some very deliberate strategies there that i'll ask noah uh to kind of walk us through because again i think it's an important context is you know you overlay the backdrop of the current sheet market and demand today versus 21 and 22 and again noah noah can cut can touch on that um you know you mentioned the structural side. And again, having spent three years at Nucor Yamato, our Nucor Yamato team and our Berkeley Bean Mill continue to deliver excellent performance, both from a safety standpoint as well as from just net earnings. They are absolutely on fire. Their backlogs are at historic levels. Their customers' customers are busier than anything that I've seen in, again, my 30-year career so um you know where is that going man it's obviously the non-res data centers um energy structural uh side and infrastructure around energy and chips chip plants and facilities warehousing and um you know in an area that uh you know we're going to continue to see expanded into the military complex in the years to come for nucor so i would tell you it's hitting on all cylinders. And while data centers are white hot, everyone's looking to participate. If you pulled out all of the data center backlog from Nucor, I mean, it only takes that down about 10%. So the historic backlogs we're seeing are really, really spread out incredibly well across the enterprise that give me great confidence that not only, as we indicated, Q2 will be better, but I think 2026 is going to be a very strong year for Nucor. or for Nucor. So with that, Noah, why don't you walk through a little bit of the sheet strategy and where we sit today?

Yeah, thanks for the question, Alex. You know, we like slow and steady and our customers are liking slow and steady, and let's take a little time to unpack that. The fundamental supporting pricing right now are really strong, and I'd say the rally we're in is probably the strongest kind of fundamentals we've seen for some time. Maybe to give you some context for how we see the rest of 26 would step back to the last inflection point in the market which was uh q4 of last year um the low side of pricing in q4 of last year and to think about how our strategies work differently this year um you recall that historically what would have happened in that low point that trough in the market is we would have had opportunistic uh speculative buyers overloading their order books to try to time the market and the result if you think about traditional behavior in q4 would have been that we would have overbooked on the mill side lead times would have jumped significantly prices would have jumped significantly and we would have really overshot basic market fundamentals so then due to the spreads and the lead times we then inevitably create the surge of imports that arrive a few months later similar to what we saw in the back half of 24 and that's what usually happens we've seen this time and time again in the sheep world but this time our our trajectory and our behavior has been markedly importantly different in this cycle we didn't chase the market down in q4 we managed our order book to match what we saw as true underlying demand and you saw this reflected in our steady i would call modest, consistent approach with pricing and see that modest increases that were supported by underlying demand. And then this this is one factor that we believe helped keep imports low. Think back to 24 and you saw imports that were prop that were 9 million ish tons. This year we're tracking 4 million or under. So there's a 5 million ton window of serviceable market for domestic suppliers. That's a that's a huge impact to the positivity with which we see the market today and then as importantly the supply chain is really healthy right now inventory levels are modest which just tells you we haven't seen the speculation that traditionally drives the volatility we would see in this mark a couple other other notes just on the strength of the current market while we have a pretty pretty positive outlook we have some key markets that are starting to show signs of positive outlook service center shipments are starting to move up they're trending up we've heard from HVAC customers recently that are really in the non-residential construction space about about a really strong second half there so there's some tailwinds there in non-risk construction that that yields some strength as well and then you already heard mention of the border fence which is a million million and a half tons over this year and next so all that together we believe supports a strong operating environment through 26 and then into potentially next year thanks no i really appreciate the context and thanks to the rest of the team as well thanks alex thank you our next question comes from tim natanas from wells fogger your line is now open please go ahead yeah hey good morning everyone i wanted to follow up if i could on the the guidance comments so the

5% year-over-year volume increase would seem to imply that this level that we saw in the first quarter year-over-year is not sustainable. So I'm just curious about what's driving that expectation. And I conclude just looking at the values that perhaps the bigger driver into Q2 could be price catching up with the market rather than volumes. Is that a fair conclusion? And if could comment a little bit more about the moving parts that would be great.

Yeah Tim look I think both are true I think you're going to see volumes and again Nucor's operating rates about 87 percent right now utilization across the board some groups being a little higher some a little lower so we have room and again from a contract standpoint you think about sheet marketing the things Noah just walk through um you know we remain and have tons available in a very uh very strong market so we maintain uh some discipline at not booking all of those times through contracts so we have spot tons to offer but again we we have we still have availability and uh again i think you're going to see that continue to move up the demand drivers um you know again i i'm not going to underplay this I've been in this business a long time. I've been in our Long's product businesses or She Group. And from a Long's perspective, our customers that I'm talking to today are busier than anything they've ever seen in their history. So when I tell you the demand drivers today are odd, it's, you know, like 21, 22, or even beyond in some cases, depending on the product group. So it is an incredible market. So I do think you're going to see some improvements in volume, to your point on the 5%. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's much more likely that it pushes closer to double digits. Again, not ready to say it's going to be at or above 10%, but I think, you know, it'll strongly be above that 5% mark. So you're going to see that move up as well. So I think that answered the two questions you were pulling on. Did I miss anything there, Tim?

I think that's fair. I think I just, you know, be always helpful to get a little bit more color on how to think about some of the lags in pricing. If you want, that'd be great. And then I guess the second question I was going to ask is to do with cost. And obviously we all track scrap really closely and that's a key one. But I just wondered if you could elaborate on some of the cost pressures that you alluded to earlier in this script. That would be great.

Yeah, Steve, I actually want to take both. I mean, the cost as well as the lag effect on, you know, which, again, I think is playing through, but will play through very positively as we head into Q2.

Yeah, yeah, sure, Tim. You know, the lag effect, just to elaborate on that just a little bit on the prior question, you know, you know this, but for the other, you know, 20% of our volume goes to our downstream business, And that gets, in our financial results, backed out through intercompany ELEM. So you see a contract in some other businesses that have a lag effect. Trends move up. There is this. And so to the heart of the question you were asking just a minute ago about Q2, you'll see some volume pickup. We had weather effect, particularly some of the downstream products. You'll probably see a little bit more volume pickup relative to pricing. In the steel side, you're going to see it the other way around where the pricing is catching up with the trends that you're seeing. So putting a little bit of a finer point on your comment about the lag effect. And costs have been down year over year and quarter over quarter. I think that's important to note. And a lot of that has to do with utilization or utilization is up, but also supplies and services are down. And a few other little details. The one area that is up that might be on investors' mind is energy, but I think it's important to note that energy is around 10 percent of the cost in steelmaking, and it probably has a far lower some of our integrated competition. Our profile is simply different there. We hedge – we typically forward buy anywhere between 40 to 50 percent of a year's worth of natural gas heading into it, and most of our cost – 80 percent of our energy cost is related to power anyway. So we don't have quite the same degree of exposure to near-term moves and costs on that.

Very helpful.

Thanks to you both. Thank you. Our next question comes from Lawson Winder from BOFA Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, operator, and good morning, Leon and team. Could I ask about the capital return? So in recent years, Nucor has exceeded the 40% net income return. I mean, last year it was like just under 70%. Is there room to push that higher in 2026? And how are you thinking about that? And then the corollary to that would be looking at the investment opportunity set. Are you seeing any new opportunities in which to invest in the business that could compete for that free cash flow versus capital return? Thank you.

Yeah. Well, since Jack, thanks for the question. In terms of share, you know, returns to shareholders, I think over the past five years, we've trended close to 60% of net earnings over that time. Starting out the first quarter, a touch under that 40% target, and that was really the result of our earnings beat. So as we work our way further into the year, you know, you should expect us to continue to close that gap and potentially exceed it. But when it comes to actual returns to shareholders, it's sort of that balancing act between staying true to our longstanding targets of roughly 40 percent, recently higher, but also being opportunistic about other areas to create value for shareholders. And a lot of that is through reinvestment. So we'll continue to do just that, balance reinvestment opportunities as they come along, maintain a healthy balance sheet along the way, and make good on our commitment to shareholders.

Okay, that's quite clear. Jack, congratulations on the promotion.

If I could ask a follow-up question related to Joyce and Dick, you noted that pricing is expected to recover to help offset some of the higher substrate costs going forward in 2026. can you just speak to some of the strength and weakness that you're seeing in the underlying market for that business this is john i'll take that question lawson so really the biggest market for the the joist and deck business is the warehouse market that's really in a steady state it's uh certainly not what it was in 21 or 22 but leveled off to a good position uh the the data center market continues to be really strong for us that's where we're seeing a lot of our our price increasing and our backlog pricing has has benefited from that and will continue to over the course of the year so we feel good about where we are in that part of it okay thank you guys very much thanks a lot thank you the next question comes from katya dantic from bmo your line is now open please go ahead hi thank you for taking my questions Earlier, you mentioned the recent change to Section 232 tires impacting derivative products.

Have you since then seen an increase in inquiries from manufacturers that could potentially try to reduce the impact, or do you expect that to happen?

Gotcha. I want to make sure I understand the question. with with the with the 232 are we seeing our customers look to basically shore up their supply chains domestically is that right or even the the near shoring because there's a there's an ability for them to reduce the the tire from 25 to 10 percent if they use 100 u.s steel so i'm just wondering if you're seeing any inquiries yeah we we absolutely are And again, I think, you know, what you've seen with Trump 2.0 and the trade things that he's implemented, you know, both from an EO and 232 is to create a long-term level fair playing field. And so, again, we're seeing import levels trend down to, you know, 15%, which is certainly the lowest I've seen in my entire career at Nucor. so it's it's at a healthy and what i believe is a very sustainable level for the u.s industry but yes your answer your question and it's something that we will certainly support and you know the melted made in america provisions of any trade policy that gets enacted and uh so yeah our customers are certainly aware of that and in looking to see how they can control their cost and output and so yeah the domestic industry is is healthy it's strong and uh again new course best days are still in front of us.

And maybe going back to the energy side, I understand that it's only 10%, but maybe looking more longer term, given that there is this expectation data centers are going to consume more energy and power costs are going to be moving higher. How are you thinking about your power costs longer term? Or are you thinking in any way to potentially look at longer-term contracts, or how should we think about it?

Yeah, Katja, look, this is something we've talked about for a long, long time. In fact, very early days from when I became CEO in 2020, we've taken small positions, but financial positions in things like NuScale Power, which is the small module reactor technology, because we need um all the power that we can get not just in solar and wind which are are good we're uh suppliers to both of those industries but it's simply not enough we've got to re-embrace or we believe nucor believes we've got to re-embrace nuclear power in this country it is the cleanest most sustainable always on demand driven power that uh we can we can bring to the grid so you saw us invest in NuScale you saw us invest in Helion that we're incredibly excited about but those investments also tied to being able to build those facilities whether it's nuclear or vision and or fusion behind the meters so that we could generate our own supply any excess then would go to the grid so to your point the demand profile what the U.S. economy is not doing to keep up with supply has been an issue and something we've thought about for a very long period of time at Nucor. So we've made those positions. But, you know, Steve mentioned it earlier as well, part of the reason why we hedge our natural gas buys. It's part of the reason we got into drilling wells on our own to begin with. It's the reason why we have a great relationship in every state that we're in that we have a steel mill in with the utilities so that we maintain long-term uninterruptible power contracts that are very, very efficient and cost effective. So do I expect in the years to come that will get a lot of pressure? Absolutely, 100%. As you know, the data centers are pushing two, three, four hundred megawatts. Now they're pushing gigawatts. These facilities are massive and they are massive power consumers. And so we've been thoughtful about it. We continue to be thoughtful about it. And we will continue to invest in the things, not because we want to make electrons, but we recognize that this nation has to re-embrace nuclear. Today, China is building 46 new nuclear facilities. The U.S. is building zero. We've got to change that.

And again, I think it's one of the clearest ways that we remain a superpower in cloud computing, AI, and the things that uh are going to transform and revolutionize uh the u.s economy thank you thank you our next question comes from carlos de alba from morgan stanley your line is now open please go ahead yeah thank you good morning everyone so a couple of questions are basically follow-ups from from prior uh inquiries uh one is uh on on uh on return money to shareholders As your capex starts to peak and you get the benefit of the new projects, would you have any preference between incremental buybacks or special dividends, or are you agnostic to those two choices?

Yeah, thanks for the question, Carlos. With respect to the best way to return cash to shareholders, traditionally our preference has been through buybacks. There have been very few instances over decades in which we've contemplated a special dividend. Not taking that entirely off the table. It's just our traditional practice has been through buybacks and sort of dollar cost averaging our way through the year. Thank you, Jack.

And then the other question is related to imports. The administration recently put out procedures for submissions by steel or aluminum producers that would be committed to new capacity in the U.S. This is related to the Proclamation 10984 on imports of medium and heavy-duty vehicles and vehicle parts. How do you think this could impact potentially the announcement of new capacity in the U.S., still capacity in the U.S.? So I think what it does, it could cut imports from 50%, sorry, not imports by the ties from 50% to 25%.

Well, Carlos, I think it's a fair question. And look, we've seen it. We've seen the interest from overseas. We've seen Nippon Steel come in and buy the U.S. steel assets. And, you know, that company no longer exists, right? It's now owned and operated by a Japanese company. You're seeing, you know, similar results in Louisiana with Hyundai, you know, building their their sheet mill there and you know when i think there are drivers to that not just trade policy but when you're the strongest economic situation in the world people want to come here and build things certainly there are some incentives for them to do that but then maybe uh just touch on you know some more specifics to to carlos's question uh yeah carlos uh appreciate the question we're we're obviously aware of that um to eo we've studied as well i would not add much more actually than leon did right we continue to to study that i think that um a lot of people

are always going to tend to move towards the u.s market as strong as it is it's going to wait and see approach on that eo along with uh many other things that are all right great thank you very much.

Thanks, Carlos.

Thank you. Our next question is from Nick Cash from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now with Tim. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you so much, Tim, for taking the question. I just want to double click on Tim's question and response from earlier. So again, the guide from 4Q was about 5% volume growth, and now it sounds like Nucor is expecting more than 5% volume growth for the year. And he sounded pretty positive and constructive on that and the environment. So I'm trying to any more color on what specifically has changed over the past I guess you know two to three months um are you more positive on the end markets and does that give you conviction in heading into the back half of the year or are certain end markets seeing you know stronger than anticipated rate of change over the past two months um imports weakened and thought or what you're seeing potentially even across the backlog um any additional color would be helpful thank you Yeah, Nick, look, I appreciate the question, and I think you're seeing a trifecta come to fruition.

So, I think it's all the above. So, I'll unpack it in three categories. One, I think in our core businesses, we're seeing incredible demand, incredible growth. Our long products groups are from Rebar, MBQ, our structural backlogs are beyond numbers that we've ever seen. Our customers, customers, and the non-res, the structural fabricators are incredibly busy. There is a demand picture today that is incredibly robust that I think is a part of that driver. The second piece of that is our expand beyond businesses that are continuing to ramp up when we talk about insulated metal panels, our doors and door technologies, the towers and structures, greenfield plants that we're building that, again, we are incredibly excited about what they're bringing to the table. And then, you know, the enclosures and data center spaces all are going to be contributing to a much healthier bottom line for a new quarter and our shareholders, not just this quarter, not just in the coming quarters, but year over year, you're going to see it. And then the third and last and probably the most important point, you know, Nick, we spend nearly 20 billion dollars since i took over the the company as ceo and our teams have done an incredible job of of a you know implementing that that cash and projects safely they've worked tirelessly to bring those projects through you know construction commissioning startup you're beginning now to see some of those um and that that planting and that you know that toiling and just nurturing come to harvest so for again years of working towards and building out you're now beginning to see the harvest starting to hit the balance sheet and that's only going to continue the pent-up tsunami of earnings power that Nucor has invested is still yet to hit the balance It is why I am so incredibly optimistic and, you know, looking at where our share price closed last night, the opening this morning, man, we're just getting warmed up. And so Nucor's best days, weeks, months, and years are still in front of it. I couldn't be more optimistic. So those three factors combined bring to me what's going to generate the healthiest returns Nucor shareholders have ever experienced and ever seen and higher lows than Nucor's ever experienced by balancing out the M&A portfolio with counter-cyclical companies and product ranges that are in different end markets that, again, just stabilize the earnings portfolio through the balance sheet. So, again, I couldn't be more optimistic. And those three pieces really are why we feel very confident about 2026 and beyond.

Awesome. I'll pass it on.

Thank you, Nick. We currently have no further questions, so I'd like to hand back to Leon Tatalian, Chair and CEO, for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you all for joining us on today's call. And before I conclude, I want to once again thank our team for delivering a strong start to our year and also for your unwavering commitment to becoming the world's safest deal company. I'd also like to thank our customers for the trust that you place in us each and every day and finally to our investors for your continued confidence in our long-term strategy thank you and have a great day thank you this now concludes today's call thank you all for joining you may now disconnect your lines