CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) announced today guidance for its third quarter ending October 3, 2009. Nucor expects third quarter results to be in the range of a loss of $0.15 to $0.20 per diluted share. By comparison, Nucor reported a loss of $0.43 per share in the second quarter of 2009 and earned $2.31 per share in the third quarter of 2008.
Our qualitative guidance for the third quarter, given in late July, was for a smaller loss than the second quarter. As expected and discussed in our previous qualitative guidance, third quarter results carry a heavy burden from accelerated consumption of high-cost pig iron inventories at our sheet mills. These inventories were purchased prior to the collapse in the economy and raw materials pricing in last year's fourth quarter. For the third quarter, we estimate this negative impact to be approximately $180 million, or about $0.37 per share after-tax. Through the first nine months, the impact has been approximately $420 million, or more than $0.85 per share after-tax. Importantly, we will complete consumption of the high-cost pig iron inventories by the close of the third quarter.
Dan DiMicco, Nucor's President, Chairman and CEO, commented: "The Nucor team has done an excellent job reducing overall costs in this unprecedentedly severe economic and steel market environment. We have a number of operations that are currently profitable in these most challenging conditions - including our two large acquisitions made in recent years, Harris Steel acquired in 2007 and The David J. Joseph Company acquired in 2008.
"While order entry and operating rates at most of our steel mills improved in the third quarter to rates of approximately 70% on average, the increases were mostly due to the end of customer destocking. Our view remains that there has been little improvement in real demand and the uncertainty in our economy is still very high. We also continue to believe that real demand is in for a long, slow recovery. The fourth quarter presents its own seasonal issues separate of the general economy due to the holidays and year-end plant shutdowns by our customers; however, our fourth quarter results should benefit from significant improvement in raw material costs.
"As in past downturns, Nucor is well-positioned to grow stronger and gain market share in this period of economic turmoil. Our team is already working to capitalize on Nucor's position of strength - one arising from our balance sheet, low cost and highly flexible production capabilities, unrivaled product diversification, and, most importantly, Nucor's extremely productive and innovative work force."
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