The company is executing its plan to invest $2.7 billion in a new recycled aluminum flat rolled products mill, with commissioning expected in mid-2025. This investment aims to broaden the company's ability to serve existing and new customers.

Steel fabrication operations continue to benefit from the solid non-residential construction market, as evidenced by our historically strong order backlog that extends through the first half of 2024. The continued onshoring of manufacturing, coupled with the robust U.S. infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Act programs and industrial construction, supports consistent strong demand.

The board of directors authorized a share repurchase program of up to $1.5 billion of the company's common stock in November 2023. This reflects management's confidence in future cash flow generation and commitment to returning capital to shareholders.

The Sinton Flat Roll Division is a prime example of our internal growth and differentiated business model. Sinton was fully commissioned during the first half of 2022, and operations have continued to ramp up as the team navigated unexpected challenges related to equipment during 2023.

The senior leadership team is highly experienced and has a proven track record in the steel, metals recycling, and steel fabrication industries, as well as in the construction and start-up of new operations. Our leadership objectives are closely aligned with our stakeholders through meaningful stock ownership positions and performance-based incentive compensation programs.

Safety is our primary focus and core value. Nothing surpasses the importance of creating and maintaining a safe work environment. Our goal is zero injuries—no accidents.

Global steelmaking capacity currently exceeds global consumption of steel products, which adversely affects United States and global steel prices. Such excess capacity sometimes results in steel manufacturers in certain countries exporting steel and steel products, at prices that are lower than prevailing domestic prices, and sometimes at or below their cost of production.

Our level of production and our sales and earnings are subject to significant fluctuations as a result of the cyclical nature of the steel industry and some of the industries we serve.

Increased cybersecurity and information technology security requirements, vulnerabilities and threats and a rise in sophisticated and targeted cybercrime, all of which may be heightened during times of war or hostilities, pose a risk to the security and functionality of our systems and information networks, and to the confidentiality, availability and integrity of sensitive data.

However, we are focused on providing a broad range of diversified value-added products that de-emphasize commodity steel. The primary competitive influences on products we sell are price, quality and value-added services.

We may face significant price and other forms of competition from other steel and aluminum producers, scrap processors and alternative materials, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Our vertically connected businesses contribute to our higher through-cycle steel production and overall profitability. Our internal manufacturing businesses are a significant competitive advantage supporting higher and more stable through-cycle earnings and cash flow generation.

We operate some of the most technically advanced and environmentally responsible steel mills in the world. Our steel mills generate a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) per ton of steel produced as compared to traditional blast furnace steel production and the average global steel industry.

Our metals recycling platform is the largest supplier of recycled ferrous scrap to our steel operations and is expected to be the largest supplier of recycled nonferrous scrap to our aluminum operations. This allows us to reduce companywide working capital, as lower scrap volume is required at our steel mills.

Interruptions in our production capabilities may adversely affect our production costs, products available for sale and earnings during the affected period. In addition to equipment failures, our facilities are subject to the risk of catastrophic loss due to unanticipated events such as fires, explosions or violent weather conditions.

Innovation in all forms is essential to our success, and our teams focus on how to do things “smarter” within our current operations, as well as how we continue to grow. This means creating solutions for our teammates, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

Our research and development activities have consisted of efforts to expand, develop and improve our steel products and operating processes, such as our Sinton Flat Roll Division, and our efforts to develop and improve alternative ironmaking technologies.

We are also currently building four additional value-added flat roll steel coating lines comprised of an additional paint line and galvanizing line located onsite at Sinton and a paint line and galvanizing line at our Heartland Flat Roll Division. These new coating lines are expected to begin operating in early 2024.

During 2023, we invested $1.7 billion in property, plant and equipment, primarily within our aluminum operations and steel operations segments, compared with $908.9 million invested during 2022.

As a reflection of continued confidence in our current and future cash flow generation capability and financial position, we increased our quarterly cash dividend by 25% to $0.425 per share in the first quarter of 2023, and continued at that level through the remainder of 2023

In the third quarter of 2023, we entered into a new unsecured credit agreement, replacing the previous one, which has a senior unsecured revolving credit facility (Facility), which provides a $1.2 billion Revolver and matures in July 2028.

Sustainability is a part of our long-term value creation strategy. We are dedicated to our people, our communities and our environment. We are committed to operating our business with the highest integrity and have been since our founding.

We only produce steel using EAF technology with recycled ferrous scrap as the primary raw material. This method of steelmaking emits approximately one-third of the Scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions and uses less than one-quarter of the energy of the global blast furnace steelmaking averages on a per metric ton basis.

In 2022, we announced a strategic joint venture, SDI Biocarbon Solutions, LLC. The joint venture, which is in the process of construction, will operate a biocarbon production facility in Columbus, Mississippi and is planned to supply our EAF steel mills with a renewable product alternative to anthracite used in our steelmaking operations.

During 2023, underlying domestic steel demand was firm, supported by the construction, automotive, and energy sectors. Customer steel inventories also remained below historical averages, in combination resulting in generally steady order patterns.

Throughout our history and today, we seek to provide unique supply-chain alternatives for our customers to increase efficiency, reduce time and costs, and promote decarbonization opportunities. Growing with our customers in this way has proven to be invaluable in creating long-lasting relationships and product development.

The markets in which we conduct business are highly competitive with an abundance of competition in the carbon steel industry from North American and foreign integrated and mini-mill steelmaking and processing operations.