ArcelorMittal turned a profit of $179 million in the second quarter, a vast improvement over the $728 million it lost during the same period a year earlier.
The Luxembourg-based steelmaker shipped 22.1 million tons of steel, an increase of 3.4 percent year over year. But the multinational steelmaker, which has an extensive presence along the lake shore in Northwest Indiana, still lost $549 million in the first six months of the year after getting hammered by unchecked imports and weak pricing in the first quarter.
"Despite continued pressure on both steel and iron-ore prices, we have delivered a consistent set of operating results compared with the first quarter," Chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal said. "Europe continues to be a bright spot, with EBITDA again improving by 10.5 percent compared with the first quarter of 2015. Mining has also performed robustly against the backdrop of a lower iron-ore price, with ArcelorMittal Mines Canada reporting record shipment levels and improved costs."
The steelmaker is still looking at restructuring its finishing operations in the United States, where it says it has lost an average of $294 million in each of the last five years amid of a record glut of cheap foreign imports from countries like China and Russia. Earlier this week, ArcelorMittal joined other U.S. steelmakers in filing a sweeping trade case against virtually every major importer of cold-rolled steel in the United States, except for Canada and Mexico.
"We remain concerned by the high level of imports," Mittal said. "Whilst we are somewhat encouraged by recent actions on potential trade defense measures from both the US and Europe, we are also taking action to adapt our own business. More positively, even against such a challenging backdrop, we have delivered a small net income for the second quarter, reduced net debt year on year and we still expect to be cash flow positive for the year."
The steelmaker projects it will make $6 billion to $7 billion in Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amoritization, as compared to $7.24 billion last year. The company's Ebitda was about $1.4 billion in the second quarter, roughly what it was in the first quarter.
ArcelorMittal is currently negotiating a new contract with the United Steelworkers union, which represents about 20,000 of its workers nationwide. The union says the steelmaker is looking to slash compensation and benefits, including by pushing retirees onto the Medicare Exchange to get supplemental coverage.