U.S. Steel Corp. lost $173 million in the third quarter as it continued to struggle because of record imports that left nearly a third of the nation's steelmaking capacity unused last week.
Total segment earnings before interest and taxes, however, improved over the second quarter as the steelmaker continues to cut costs, U.S. Steel Chief Executive Officer Mario Longhi said. The company lost $53 million in one-time costs associated with the shutdown of the blast furnace and most other steelmaking operations at Fairfield Works in Alabama.
Shipments plunged 25 percent year-over-year.
"We remain focused on our Carnegie Way transformation efforts to weather the continued difficult market environment," Longhi said.
"These efforts will better position our company to generate stronger operating margins and respond to changing market conditions."
U.S. Steel, which is now trying to negotiate a new contract with the United Steelworkers union, lost $1.18 per diluted share over the last three months, but declared it would nonetheless pay a dividend of 5 cents per share to anyone who owns the stock on Dec. 10.
The company brought in $85 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, in the third quarter, and expects to bring in $225 million in EBITDA this year. U.S. Steel says it will save $715 million this year as a result of its ongoing Carnegie Way cost-cutting initiative.
The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker has about $2.9 billion in liquidity, including $1.2 billion in cash. U.S. Steel says it was able to maintain a positive cash flow of $308 million for the first nine months of the year despite "significantly challenging market conditions." Flat-rolled prices fell by $20 per ton in the third quarter as an average of 1 million tons of sheet imports poured into America's ports.
After turning its first annual profit in a half decade last year, U.S. Steel has been hemorrhaging money because of a tsunami of cheap imports and the crash of crude oil prices that propped up its tubular business through the downturn. The steelmaker lost $261 million in the previous quarter.
"We remain committed to the execution of our long-term strategy," Longhi said. "We continue to focus on the factors that we can control and are making excellent progress on our Carnegie Way transformation efforts."