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Text: On behalf of U.S. Steel, I'd like to wish everyone a happy and healthy 2022.
Steel President and CEO, Dave Burritt, who will begin on slide four.
2021 was an exceptional year.
It puts us on a path for another strong year in 2022.
We delivered for our stakeholders in 2021, achieving record performance across nearly every part of our business, record earnings, record EBITDA, record EBITDA margin, record free cash flow, and record safety, quality, and reliability performance.
Collectively, we are pursuing best here at U.S. Steel, and 2021 is a great example of our progress.
But this is just the beginning.
Our progress will continue in 2021 beyond.
While the market is certainly looking for every reason to be negative about the prospects for this year, we remain overwhelmingly positive.
As expected, the first quarter will be seasonally weak, including the normal impacts of our mining operations, but we believe this is just temporary.
While markets continue to self-correct, the macro backdrop is favorable.
Supply chain issues will ease, inflationary pressures will abate, saving rates remain high, cash remains on the sidelines and demand remains pent up for the markets we serve.
This is a recipe for success in steel, and we are optimistic that 2022 demand will accelerate.
We have, after all, double through cycle prices.
Clearly, a great place to be.
We know about the risks, the Fed taking rates up too fast, unexpected changes to import restrictions, geopolitical risk, existential risks.
The risks are many, but we've seen it all before.
We know where we're headed, and we know how to get there.
When you are in pursuit, constant pursuit of best, you were never satisfied, and challenges will always remain.
We are taking the necessary steps to become less capital and carbon intensive.
We are executing on strategic investments to expand our capabilities, capabilities that will make us a better, not bigger steel company.
And we are going to move faster, not slower in 2022 because as we like to say, we can't get to the future fast enough.
This isn't your great, great grand path for U.S. steel anymore.
U.S. Steel's future is incredibly bright.
The solution remains the same, execute our best for all strategy by constructing a second mini mill greenfield facility and expanding finishing lines through our investments in an electrical steel line and coating line at Big River while returning capital to stockholders.
When we execute, we expect to unlock $850 million of additional through cycle EBITDA through state-of-the-art mini mill steelmaking and finishing line capabilities.
And we will have further differentiated our sustainability advantages by customers as we continue to deliver against our responsible steel and 2050 decarbonization objectives while growing our offering of sustainable steel solutions, including verdeX.
We know you know this.
But we clearly know this is a show-me story.
So we will keep our heads down, remain focused and disciplined and we will continue our progress toward our best for all path forward because after all, we have to keep showing our stakeholders what best for all means.
It's about continuing to reimagine how steel gets made more sustainably like efforts earned by Big River facility Daimler's 2021 Sustainability recognition award.
And it also means continuing to innovate to accelerate and further our best for all progress.
Just this week, as an example, we announced a strategic investment and partnership in Carnegie foundry, a leading robotics and artificial intelligence studio in Pittsburgh, supported by Carnegie Mellon University.
We look forward to beginning our partnership together as we work to accelerate and scale industrial automation to find new ways to serve our customers.
Our customers are seeing and embracing the transformation that's taking place at U.S. Steel, and we are pleased to be a like-minded regional partner for them.
We look forward to deepening our partnerships to create unique solutions that build on our long-term relationships, industry-leading innovation and constantly increasing focus on products our competitors haven't imagined.
For our employees and communities, best for all means investments in their future in our recent announcement that we have selected Osceola, Arkansas as a home for our second mini mill, means jobs.
It means a commitment to that community.
It means a more secure future for the region, and it means a more responsive U.S. steel to meet the needs of our customers.
Osceola is our newest home, and we continue to invest in regions that have supported U.S. Steel throughout our history, integrated mills and mini mills, our Best of Both enabling our best for all future.
And for investors, best for all means increasing our future earnings power while returning capital to stockholders.
We don't believe the market is rewarding us yet for continued strength in 2022, improve through-cycle earnings or for the long-term value, our best for all strategy.
So we will continue to buy back our own stock and are pleased to announce an incremental $500 million authorization.
We are generating excess cash, and we have an obligation to reward stockholders.
As I said before, this isn't our great, great grand path with U.S. Steel, and we look forward to continuing to show all our stakeholders the power of best for all.
Let's get into the agenda for today's call on slide five.
First, we will spend some time recapping our 2021 performance and strategic milestones.
Second, we will provide some additional context on why we are confident.
And third, we will spend some time providing definition on our capital allocation framework and key priorities, priorities aligned with showing our stakeholders what best for all means for them.
2021's record performance has fundamentally changed our business.
As you see on slide six, our record performance in safety and environmental, in customer and operational excellence and in our financial performance, is a direct result of executing our strategy over the past several years.
Take safety and environmental as an example.
Safety is and will always be first at U.S. Steel and is at the core of our steel principles.
We delivered our best safety and environmental performance on record and continue our progress toward our ambitious 2030 and 2050 carbon reduction goals.
We also demonstrated exceptional quality and reliability performance when it mattered most to deliver for our customers in 2021.
We also delivered record financial performance in 2021.
We acted boldly in 2020 to announce the acquisition of the remaining stake in Big River Steel, best as the market was gaining momentum.
We moved quickly and our well-timed acquisition allowed us to capture the remarkable earnings power of Big River Steel in 2021, including nearly $1.4 billion of EBITDA and 39% EBITDA margin.
Steel Europe segments also delivered record financial performance.
Our integrated operations continue to run well to drive what is expected to be another impressive year in 2022.
I'll begin on slide seven.
As Dave mentioned, 2021 was a year of record financial performance.
We ended the year with adjusted EBITDA of approximately $5.6 billion and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 28%.
This translated into record free cash flow generation of approximately $3.2 billion, including over $1 billion in the fourth quarter alone.
We expect to generate meaningful levels of free cash flow in 2022 as well.
Adjusted earnings per share in the quarter was $3.64 per share and was significantly impacted by a noncash year-end true-up to our tax valuation allowance.
Excluding this impact, we outperformed expectations on earnings per share just like we did on revenue and adjusted EBITDA.
Our strong performance in 2021 allowed us to transform our balance sheet by repaying over $3 billion in debt in the year and ending the year with 0.7 times leverage.
This type of financial performance allows us to enter 2022 from a position of strength.
The remaining debt on the balance sheet is manageable with over 80% due until 2029 and beyond.
Our pension and OPEB plans are overfunded.
We have no mandatory cash contributions for the foreseeable future and have already derisked a component of the plan to further strengthen our balance sheet.
And we're also ending the year with nearly $5 billion of liquidity, including over $2.5 billion of cash.
Before I hand it back to Dave to expand on our 2022 opportunities, I'll spend a few minutes on our segment performance on slide eight.
In our flat-rolled segment, we delivered record EBITDA and EBITDA margin in 2021 of over $3.1 billion and 25%, respectively.
In the fourth quarter alone, we generated over $1 billion of EBITDA and an EBITDA margin of 30%.
It was a similar scenario for our mini mill segment.
2021 delivered record EBITDA and EBITDA margin of nearly $1.4 billion and 39%, respectively.
This included $406 million of EBITDA in the fourth quarter and an industry-leading 41% EBITDA margin.
The fourth quarter marked the second consecutive quarter of $400 million plus of EBITDA and over 40% EBITDA margins.
Our European operations also posted record EBITDA and EBITDA margin in 2021.
EBITDA was nearly $1.1 billion for the year or 25% EBITDA margin.
Lastly, our tubular segment reported nearly $50 million of EBITDA in 2021, including $42 million in the fourth quarter alone.
We are leveraging new trade actions where we can and continue to expect the tubular segment to be a more meaningful contributor to our financial performance in 2022.
We remain bullish for 2022 and slide nine highlights just a few items that support our point of view.
At its core, consumer demand remains very good.
As I mentioned in my earlier remarks, there is a lot of cash sitting on the sidelines with saving rates at elevated levels.
But supply chain issues have prevented the full potential of consumer demand to shine through.
In auto, pent-up demand continues into 2022 and easing supply chain pressures are driving increased auto production expectations.
Auto builds in North America are expected to increase by 2 million units in 2022 and accelerate as the year progresses.
This is a significant improvement for 2021 with room to run as broad supply chain issues are resolved.
In appliances, production in 2022 is expected to be on pace with last year's record output.
And these expectations are materializing in our order book.
In the U.S., we're seeing the auto and appliance original equipment manufacturers or OEMs order book increased each month in the first quarter.
Many of these OEM orders carry new, higher fixed-contract prices to begin the year.
Also, the tin packaging business is expected to remain strong in 2022.
This is a market we are uniquely positioned to serve and where pricing was also negotiated significantly higher for 2022.
Make no mistake, the success we had on fixed-price contracts has generated significant year-over-year uplift on our fixed book of business.
On steel market pricing, recent price movement still positions spot indices at two times historical averages.
Demand is in line with normal seasonality, and auto and appliance activity keeps us bullish for consumer demand.
Meanwhile, the import arbitrage is starting to fade and lead times are normalizing, which we believe are precursors to increase spot market activity and positive price momentum.
In Europe, pricing has already stabilized close to $1,000 per ton and our order book has been steady.
We expect order entries to accelerate into the similarly stronger second quarter and are on pace for another strong year from our European operations.
In tubular, rig counts have increased, supported by higher oil and natural gas prices.
This is driving increased demand and higher pricing for our OCTG products.
Demand is expected to accelerate in 2022 and our EAF and proprietary connections will continue to support higher earnings in 2022.
We are enhancing the customer experience and are seeing tangible results for 2022.
The customer is core to everything we do.
We recently partnered with Norfolk Southern and Greenbrier to develop a railcar that utilizes U.S. steel proprietary grades, resulting in a stronger, lighter and more capable railcar.
Through collaboration with U.S. Steel, Norfolk Southern and Greenbrier are able to extend the useful life, improve their sustainability and increase the efficiency of each gondola railcar.
This type of product innovation create sustainable solutions is just the latest example.
We are focused on continuing these mutually beneficial partnerships in 2022.
Our transformed balance sheet is another reason we're excited for 2022.
Today's strong balance sheet fully funds the strategic projects we've already discussed, creates a clear path to strategy execution and is a foundation for our balanced and disciplined approach to capital allocation, including direct returns to stockholders.
This is in addition to our existing $300 million authorization announced in October 2021, of which approximately $200 million has been repurchased to date under the existing authorization.
We will continue to repurchase our own stock, especially when it is trading at what we believe is a significant discount.
Before I detail our enhanced capital allocation priorities, Christie will provide an outlook on our first quarter performance.
We are on pace to deliver another strong performance in the first quarter.
Slide 10 outlines some key considerations for first quarter performance.
Our flat-rolled segment is expected to report increased shipments and higher selling prices from reset annual contracts versus the fourth quarter.
As you know, the seasonality of mine will impact the first quarter, along with higher coal and natural gas costs, which will more than offset the commercial steel tailwinds.
Recall, each year, the lots on the Great Lakes closed from mid-January through the end of March.
This not only limits our ability to ship pellets to our own operations but also to ship to third-party customers.
Given our increasing presence as a merchant seller of iron ore, the seasonal impacts of our mining operations have increased from historical levels.
In our mini mill segment, the shifting hot-rolled coil pricing dynamic in the U.S. will be more fully reflected in our average selling price.
We expect temporarily lower volumes due to more hot-rolled coil product mix than our flat-rolled segment.
imports of sheet steel increased over 70% to a six-year high.
This quarter, we continued to monitor surges of low-priced imports and their impact on the market and on our operations.
In Europe, steel prices and volumes are expected to be similar to the fourth quarter, while raw material and energy costs will be likely headwinds.
In tubular, higher prices have increasingly been reflected in our performance, as well as lower scrap costs for our Fairfield EAF.
As a result, we expect Tubular's EBITDA to improve again in the first quarter.
Dave, back to you.
Over the past year, we've talked a lot about our strategy and the continued progress toward our best for all future.
With each passing quarter, we have transformed the balance sheet, announced an advanced critical capability and sustainability-related strategic projects to improve our through-cycle earnings power and reduce our capital and carbon intensity and enhance our direct returns to stockholders.
Today, I want to reinforce some important messages and provide more definition around our business priorities and capital allocation framework on slide 11.
A framework that we believe will create long-term stockholder value.
The major theme should be familiar to you.
We will maintain a strong balance sheet.
We will invest in capabilities, not to become bigger, but to become better, and we will return capital to stockholders as the business continues to perform exceptionally well.
Let's discuss each component of our capital allocation framework in more detail.
First, we consider a strong balance sheet to be foundational to the success of our strategy.
We are pleased with the significant progress we've made to reduce our debt, extend our maturity profile, lower our debt service costs and improve our credit ratings.
As we continue to execute our strategy, we are targeting a through-cycle total debt-to-EBITDA leverage metric of 3 to 3.5 times.
Based on the progress we've already made to delever the balance sheet and the improved through-cycle earnings power of our integrated and mini mill business model, we are confident that our mid-cycle performance capability more than support this target.
We will continue to evaluate more modest near-term opportunities to repay debt and optimize our capital structure.
Second, we believe the highest value-added use of our cash is to fund the announced investments that will transform our earnings profile and increase the consistency of our free cash flow.
U.S. Steel is executing from a position of strength, a position that we've earned through operational and commercial excellence and record-setting EBITDA and free cash flow performance.
It is a position that is tremendously valuable and is a catalyst to advancing our strategy, which our customers demand from us.
As we accelerate our transition toward best for all, we will protect the successful execution of mini mill No.
2 and the strategic investments we are making in non-grain-oriented electrical steel and galvanizing capability at Big River Steel by maintaining a cash position no less than our next 12-month capex.
This will ensure that our strategic investments will be fully funded by existing cash and free cash flow while preserving our ability to maintain a balanced and disciplined capital allocation strategy.
Third, as you would expect, we will continue to evaluate investment opportunities to further our best for all strategic transition.
As we seek to lower the sustaining capital requirements of the business, we are sharpening our focus on the types of projects we may pursue in the future.
For us, best for all starts with enhancing our focus on expanding our competitive advantages: low-cost iron ore, mini mill steelmaking, and best-in-class fishing capabilities, and by returning and by delivering returns of at least 15%.
There are no additional capability investments to announce at this time as our focus is on completing the announced projects ahead of schedule and under budget, something our Big River Steel team has demonstrated they are highly capable of doing.
Lastly, an important component of our capital allocation framework is stockholder distributions.
Last quarter, we were pleased to announce our restored $0.05 per share quarterly dividend, and our first priority for direct returns is to maintain that dividend policy.
We plan to supplement commitment to a quarterly dividend by returning excess cash through measured and opportunistic stock buybacks.
This allows for direct participation in capital returns for our investors as we successfully deliver our strategy.
As mentioned earlier, I am pleased to say that our Board has authorized a new and incremental repurchase program of $500 million.
Our best for all future has never been clear, and we believe the framework described today provides even more definition on how we will advance our disciplined approach to creating stockholder value.
We believe our best for all strategy and capital allocation framework delivers a compelling investor proposition, a proposition that balances financial strength, investments that sustainably advance our competitive advantages and long-term through-cycle value creation by increasing our earnings power, improving our free cash flow and distributing capital to stockholders.
I'm pretty pumped up about where we are today and what our future holds.
With that, let's get to Q&A.

user
q4 adjusted earnings per share $3.64.
board of directors has authorized a new $500 million stock repurchase program to commence in q1.
expect 2022 to be another strong year.

assistant