AK Steel Holding Expects Q1 Loss To Widen - Update

(RTTNews) - AK Steel Holding Corp. (AKS) Friday said it expects to post a wider loss in the first quarter, as increased energy costs due to the harsh winter and an unplanned outage at Ashland blast furnace hurt shipments.

AK Steel expects first-quarter net loss of $0.44 to $0.49 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters currently estimate the company to post a profit of $0.06 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

The company had reported a first-quarter loss of $0.07 per share last year.

The company blamed several factors for the first-quarter loss including higher energy costs contributed by the extreme cold weather in the U.S., an unplanned blast furnace outage, the acceleration of a planned blast furnace outage, and a charge for a tentative legal settlement.

Nonetheless, AK Steel does not expect these factors to continue to dent its bottom line for rest of the year.

For the first quarter, AK Steel expects shipments of about 1.25 million to 1.28 million tons, representing a drop of 10 to 12 percent decrease sequentially. The lower shipments reflect the unplanned outage at Ashland Works blast furnace that resulted in a decline in shipments of carbon steel to the spot market and a decline in shipments of electrical steel.

Meanwhile, the company expects selling price to improve by about 6 percent sequentially to $1,095 per ton.

AKS is currently trading at $7.01, up $0.31 or 4.63%, on a volume of 7.8 million shares, on the NYSE.