Capital expenditures are estimated to be approximately $3.5 billion in 2024, compared to $2.2 billion in 2023. This increase is primarily due to ongoing projects such as the sheet mill in West Virginia and the rebar micro mill in North Carolina.

Nucor is actively investing in new facilities, including a sheet mill in West Virginia and a rebar micro mill in North Carolina. These investments are intended to expand the company's product offerings and improve its cost structure.

Nucor has made strategic acquisitions in the steel products segment over the last three years. These were largely to further the Expand Beyond component of our strategy.

Operating rates at our steel mills for the full year 2023 increased slightly to 78% as compared to 77% for the full year 2022.

Nucor remains focused on securing reliable access to low-cost raw material inputs as they are the Company's largest expense. We believe Nucor's broad, balanced supply chain is an important strength which allows us to reduce the cost of our steelmaking operations, create a shorter supply chain and have greater control over our metallic inputs.

In 2023, we achieved an annual Injury/Illness Rate of 0.79, which marks the fifth consecutive year of a reduced rate. This marks an improvement over our annual Injury/Illness Rate of 0.95 in 2022.

Global steel production overcapacity continues to be an ongoing risk to Nucor and the entire steel industry. The OECD estimated that global steel production overcapacity would grow from approximately 556.1 million metric tons in 2022 to more than 600 million metric tons 2023, with additional capacity expected to come online over the next few years.

Our steel mills are large consumers of electricity and natural gas. In addition, our DRI facilities are also large consumers of natural gas. We rely upon third parties for our supply of energy resources consumed in the manufacture of our products.

We incur significant costs to achieve and maintain compliance with environmental regulations and remediation obligations. The principal federal environmental laws include the CAA, which regulates air emissions; the CWA which regulates water withdrawals and discharges; the RCRA, which addresses solid and hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal; and the CERCLA, which governs releases of hazardous substances, and remediation of contaminated sites.

We face ongoing competition from other steel producers and imports that compete with our products on price, quality and service. The markets for our products are highly competitive and a number of firms, domestic and foreign, participate in the steel, steel products and raw materials markets.

We are North America's most diversified steel producer. As a result, our short-term performance is not tied to any one market.

Global steel production overcapacity continues to be an ongoing risk to Nucor and the entire steel industry, with the OECD estimating that global steel production overcapacity would grow from approximately 550 million metric tons in 2022 to more than 600 million tons in 2023.

Our highly variable, low-cost structure, combined with our financial strength and liquidity, have allowed us to successfully navigate cyclical steel industry market conditions in the past. In such times, our incentive-based pay system reduces our payroll costs, both hourly and salary, which helps to offset lower selling prices.

The average utilization rates of all operating facilities in the steel mills, steel products and raw materials segments in 2023 were approximately 78%, 64% and 71% of production capacity, respectively.

Nucor remains focused on securing reliable access to low-cost raw material inputs as they are the Company's largest expense. We believe Nucor's broad, balanced supply chain is an important strength which allows us to reduce the cost of our steelmaking operations, create a shorter supply chain and have greater control over our metallic inputs.

We plan to achieve our goals by increasing the use of clean electricity, deploying carbon capture and sequestration where practical and developing near zero GHG ironmaking technologies, as well as through the development and deployment of technologies enabling us to reduce our consumption of injection and charge carbon and natural gas.

We have invested in two companies developing next generation nuclear power technology, and we are exploring ways in which we can work with these companies and with our electric utility partners to accelerate deployment of these technologies on the regional power grids serving our operations, as they mature and become scalable.

We have invested in Electra, a company that is working to develop and scale a process to produce carbon-free iron that can be used to make steel. Electra's technology relies on intermittent, clean energy to refine low-grade iron ores through electrochemical and hydrometallurgical processes.

Nucor returned approximately $2.07 billion in capital to its stockholders in the form of base dividends and share repurchases in 2023.

Nucor has paid $1.53 billion in dividends to its stockholders during the past three years. That dividend payout represents 7% of cash flows from operations during that three-year period.

Capital deployment is expected to increase in 2024 with planned capital expenditures of approximately $3.5 billion, continued evaluation of acquisitions, and share repurchases expected to outpace 2023.

In November 2023, we announced net-zero, science-based greenhouse gas (GHG) targets for 2050 and established a new interim emissions reduction target for 2030. These new GHG intensity targets are defined by the Global Steel Climate Council's (GSCC) "Steel Climate Standard", an ambitious standard that is aligned with both the Paris Climate Agreement's emission reduction goals for the steel sector by 2050, and the International Energy Agency's "Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy System" glidepath.

We are committed to further reducing our GHG footprint over time. In November 2023, we announced net-zero, science-based greenhouse gas (GHG) targets for 2050 and established a new interim emissions reduction target for 2030.

Nucor operates a robust and sustainable environmental program that incorporates the concept of each individual teammate, as well as management, being responsible for environmental performance.

The U.S. economy grew at a faster rate in 2023 – 2.5 percent – compared to 1.9 percent the prior year. Steel market demand in 2023 remained strong across many of the end markets we serve, particularly nonresidential construction.

Legislation passed by Congress is providing more than $1.5 trillion to rebuild traditional infrastructure, build-out clean energy infrastructure and re-shore semiconductor chip manufacturing back to the United States. These steel-intensive projects are expected to create an estimated 5 to 8 million tons of additional annual steel demand in the coming years.

Strong Buy America requirements in the IIJA and the Inflation Reduction Act will promote domestically produced steel being used to rebuild U.S. infrastructure and build-out new clean energy infrastructure.