China Orders Steel Mills to Slow Rio Tinto Ore Purchases, Pressuring Contract Talks

Commercial Metals Company expects its TAG Transform, Advance, Grow program to deliver run-rate gross EBITDA benefits exceeding $250 million by the end of fiscal 2026, rising to more than $350 million by the end of fiscal 2027. Launched in 2024, the program spans more than 150 individual projects across the company's business segments and support functions, aimed at optimizing logistics, reducing input consumption, lowering costs and boosting energy efficiency. Backed by the program, CMC expects fiscal 2029 core EBITDA of $1.65 billion to $1.80 billion, a 106% surge at the midpoint from the $837 million delivered in fiscal 2025, with a core EBITDA margin of 15-16%. Separately, Cleveland-Cliffs is investing $1 billion to modernize its Middletown Works facility in Ohio, half of it funded by a $500 million U.S. Department of Energy award, while Carpenter Technology set a fiscal 2029 operating income target of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion, up from $702 million reported in fiscal 2026. The Zacks Consensus Estimate puts CMC's fiscal 2026 sales at $9.18 billion, up 13.9% year over year, and earnings at $6.62 per share, up 111.5%.

Steel Dynamics expects third-quarter 2026 earnings of $5.34-$5.38 per share, well above the $3.69 it reported in the second quarter and the $2.74 it posted in the year-ago quarter. The company said stronger steel metal margins, record shipments, higher realized selling prices and lower scrap costs are projected to drive the significant sequential improvement in steel operations profitability, with healthy order activity, solid end-market demand and low customer inventories also supporting pricing conditions. Steel fabrication earnings are expected to improve modestly on higher shipments despite narrower metal spreads, and the backlog is nearly 50% above prior-year levels and extends through the first quarter of 2027, supported by demand from commercial construction, data centers, manufacturing and healthcare. Metals recycling earnings are expected to decline sequentially on lower metal spreads and slightly weaker shipments, while aluminum earnings are expected to improve meaningfully on higher shipments as the company advances its Columbus, MS aluminum flat rolled mill, where all three cold mills are operational and the first Continuous Annealing and Solution Heat line is expected to ship commercial material in the fourth quarter. Steel Dynamics has repurchased $261 million, or just under 1% of its common stock, so far in the third quarter, and is scheduled to report third-quarter 2026 results after market close on Oct. 19, 2026.

Prysmian and Rio Tinto announced that electrical cables made with ELYSIS aluminum have been contracted for installation at an Amazon data center near Columbus, Ohio, marking the first known use of inert-anode-smelted, low-carbon aluminum in a data center. ELYSIS technology produces aluminum with no direct greenhouse gas emissions from the smelting process, emitting oxygen instead. The cables are manufactured and shipped from Prysmian's Sedalia, Missouri factory, with Wesco handling distribution. The companies had previously introduced ELYSIS aluminum in building wire in March 2026. All aluminum Rio Tinto supplied for the cables was produced in Quebec, Canada, using hydropower. Prysmian aims to become Net Zero by 2035 and targets 55% of revenues from sustainability-linked solutions by 2028.