Q1 2024 Nucor Corp Earnings Call

Participants

Allen C. Behr; EVP of Plate & Structural Products; Nucor Corporation

Brad Ford; EVP of Fabricated Construction Products; Nucor Corporation

D. Chad Utermark; EVP of New Markets & Innovation; Nucor Corporation

Daniel R. Needham; EVP of Commercial; Nucor Corporation

David A. Sumoski; COO; Nucor Corporation

Jack Sullivan; General Manager of IR; Nucor Corporation

John J. Hollatz; EVP of Bar, Engineered Bar & Rebar Fabrication Products; Nucor Corporation

K. Rex Query; EVP of Sheet, Tubular Products & Talent Resources; Nucor Corporation

Leon J. Topalian; President, CEO & Chairman of the Board; Nucor Corporation

Noah C. Hanners; EVP of Raw Materials; Nucor Corporation

Stephen D. Laxton; CFO, Treasurer & Executive VP; Nucor Corporation

Curtis Rogers Woodworth; Research Analyst; UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Martin John Englert; Senior Analyst; Seaport Research Partners

Timna Beth Tanners; MD of Equity Research; Wolfe Research, LLC

Tristan Gresser; Research Analyst; BNP Paribas Exane, Research Division

William Chapman Peterson; Analyst; JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Nucor's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) And today's call is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)
I would now like to introduce Jack Sullivan, General Manager of Nucor Investor Relations. You may begin your call.

Jack Sullivan

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Nucor's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Review and Business Update. Leading our call today is Leon Topalian, Chair, President and CEO; along with Steve Laxton, Executive Vice President and CFO. We also have other members of Nucor's executive team with us, including Dave Sumoski, Chief Operating Officer; Al Behr, responsible for Plate and Structural Products; Brad Ford, over Fabricated Construction Products; Noah Hanners, Raw Materials; John Hollatz, Bar and Rebar Fabrication; Doug Jellison, Corporate Strategy; Greg Murphy, Business Services, Sustainability and General Counsel; Dan Needham, Commercial; Rex Query, Sheet Products; and Chad Utermark, New Products and Innovation.
We posted our first quarter earnings release and presentation to the Nucor Investor Relations website, and we encourage you to access these materials as we'll cover portions of them during the call.
Today's discussion will include the use of non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking information within the meaning of securities laws. Actual results may be different than forward-looking statements and involve risks outlined in our safe harbor statement and disclosed in Nucor's SEC filings. The appendix of today's presentation includes supplemental information and disclosures, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures.
So with that, let's turn the call over to Leon.

Leon J. Topalian

Thanks, Jack, and welcome, everyone. I'd like to begin by congratulating our 32,000 Nucor teammates for a safe and profitable start to 2024.
In the first quarter, we generated EBITDA of approximately $1.5 billion and net earnings of $845 million or $3.46 per diluted share. For the quarter, we shipped a total of 6.2 million tons to outside customers, up 5% from the prior quarter and in line with our average quarterly shipments for 2023. Pricing also remained strong in the first quarter. Average steel mill pricing per ton was up nearly 10% compared to the prior quarter and slightly ahead of the average for all of 2023. For Steel Products, realized prices continue to moderate. However, prices have held consistently above pre-pandemic levels and will continue to generate robust returns.
In keeping with our commitments to shareholders and our balanced approach to capital allocation, Nucor returned over $1.1 billion to shareholders through dividend payments and share repurchases in the first quarter. We made good progress on key capital investment projects during the quarter. And as we've mentioned previously, our capital spending will increase this year as we get further along in the construction phase of our West Virginia sheet mill and our Lexington, North Carolina rebar micro mill. We're also advancing work on 2 downstream production facilities that are part of our Nucor Towers & Structures growth platform.
On the safety front, our team delivered the safest quarter in Nucor's history with an injury and illness rate roughly 30% lower than that of Q1 last year. I'm incredibly proud of the steady progress we have been making since 2017 to drive down the number of safety incidents we experienced. Our goal to become the world's safest steel company will require the steadfast determination, innovation and continuous improvement in how we operate. We have the most capable team assembled anywhere in the world, who are all focused on delivering these results and taking great care of one another, our customers, and shareholders.
Building on our leadership position in sustainability continues to be a high priority, and we kicked off 2024 with several exciting initiatives. In March, we signed an agreement with Mercedes-Benz to supply Econiq-RE for vehicles produced at its Tuscaloosa, Alabama manufacturing plant. Econiq-RE is made with 100% renewable energy and has a greenhouse gas intensity less than half that of extractive blast furnace-based steel production across Scopes 1, 2 and 3. Our agreement with Mercedes-Benz is another example of how we're partnering with world-class customers to reduce carbon emissions within their supply chain.
We also announced a new initiative with Google and Microsoft to scale the adoption of clean energy technologies. Developers of such technologies often struggle to find creditworthy and large-scale energy customers to advance early-stage projects. We aim to lower these obstacles by aggregating our energy needs with others, like Google and Microsoft, that will seek affordable, reliable and cleaner forms of energy. Going forward, we'll be working with energy providers, policymakers, and other large energy consumers to advance this work.
Nucor continues to receive recognition for our sustainability efforts. Earlier this year, Barron's magazine designated Nucor the only steel company ranked among its Top 100 Most Sustainable Companies. Congratulations to our entire Nucor team for this well-deserved recognition of your commitment to operating sustainably each and every day.
Turning to our commercial strategy. We're always looking for better ways to serve our customers, which has led us to introduce weekly pricing updates for our hot-rolled coil sheet products. Nucor's Consumer Spot Price, or CSP for short, will provide customers with reliable, real-time pricing information for hot-rolled coil. The CSP will provide our customers with better information to make better decisions to meet their needs. Having real-time pricing, coupled with shorter lead times, will help our customers reduce the risks inherent in price speculation. While the CSP pricing framework has only been in place for a few weeks, the customer feedback thus far has been positive.
On the corporate strategy front, 2024 is off to a productive start. We recently announced the acquisition of Southwest Data Products, a reputable manufacturer and installer of data center infrastructure with an impressive blue-chip customer base. With that, I'd like to welcome the 147 team members at Southwest Data Products to the Nucor family.
In conjunction with this transaction, we're launching a new business unit, Nucor Data Systems, to better serve the data center market. Southwest Data Products gives Nucor expanded capabilities in airflow containment structures, which help data centers run more efficiently by separating cold air from the heat generated by racks of server equipment.
The team at Southwest has a strong reputation for engineering and manufacturing high-quality products and installing them in a timely and professional way. They have also deep relationships with many of the largest data center, codevelopers and hyperscalers, which Nucor can leverage to cross-sell our other downstream products.
The rise of artificial intelligence and the growing reliance on cloud computing are driving strong demand for the next-generation data centers, and this market is expected to grow at double-digit annual rates through the end of this decade. We continue to evaluate other acquisition opportunities in high-growth sectors, and we have a robust pipeline of compelling prospects aligned with steel-adjacent growth trends.
Before turning it over to Steve, I'd like to take a moment to comment on recent updates to our nation's trade enforcement policy. Earlier this month, I attended a World Steel Association meeting where I currently serve as Chair. And during that meeting, we discussed the ongoing challenges posed by global production overcapacity. The U.S. Commerce Department recently published a final rule designed to strengthen its antidumping and countervailing duty regulations. These rule changes are a positive development for Nucor and the entire steel industry as they strengthen the enforcement of existing trade laws. We appreciate the Commerce Department for making these necessary changes, but we still believe it's crucial for Congress to pass the Level the Playing Field 2.0 legislation to give commerce additional tools that address trade-distorting behaviors.
With that, I'll turn it over to Steve, who'll share some more details on our Q1 financial results. Steve?

Stephen D. Laxton

Thank you, Leon, and thank you all for joining our call this morning. The first quarter of 2024 saw Nucor advance its growth strategy, made meaningful commercial moves and continue to differentiate itself. We also had a solid start to the year on the earnings front with net earnings of $845 million or $3.46 a share. This was nearly 10% higher than our prior quarter earnings per share but came in roughly 4% below the midpoint of our first quarter earnings guidance range. So I'd like to take a minute to share some color on that.
First, and most important, results from the 3 operating segments were generally in line with our forecast for the first quarter. However, certain administrative costs and intercompany eliminations exceeded our estimates. Some of the larger drivers of higher-than-expected administrative costs related to employee benefits, such as medical insurance coverage.
Intercompany eliminations had a more pronounced impact. Higher-than-expected eliminations were a function of 2 things. One driver was the delivery of more materials from Nucor divisions to our own construction projects than expected. This is predominantly a timing difference between our pre-guidance assumptions and what actually materialized. The second driver was more activity and profits than anticipated between our operating divisions.
As most of you know, Nucor has a diverse and integrated set of businesses. This aspect provides strategic benefit, synergies, and risk mitigation over long periods of time. However, that same beneficial attribute can result in short-term adjustments to earnings recognition, particularly during periods of higher rates of change in volume and realized pricing, both of which occurred in the first quarter. Generally speaking, these intercompany eliminations are simply timing differences between segment-level earnings recognition and the final sale to our customers.
With respect to our operating segment results, our steel mills improved pretax earnings nearly 90% from the prior quarter, generating approximately $1.1 billion in pretax earnings for the first quarter. Improved results in our sheet business was the largest factor driving the quarter-over-quarter gains. That business saw approximately 11% increase in shipments and 19% higher realized pricing during the quarter.
Moving to Steel Products. This segment delivered pretax earnings of approximately $512 million for the quarter. Total segment shipments were down approximately 4% from the prior quarter. We believe an unusually wet start to the year may have adversely affected some regional construction activity during the period. While margins for downstream steel products have receded from the historically high levels of recent years, the segment continues to generate attractive returns and strong cash flows.
Highlighting a few individual product lines, the first quarter saw higher pricing and margin from our tubular products divisions. This was more than offset by moderating contributions from our joist and deck, metal buildings, and rebar fabrication operations. Our joist and deck business continues to be the largest single contributor to our steel products segment earnings. This business tends to have backlogs and lead times of 4 to 6 months. Consequently, we believe the earnings profile of our joist and deck business will likely stabilize as we approach the back half of the year, given the relative stability we've seen in pricing over the last quarter. It's worth noting that for the foreseeable future, this business is expected to maintain results that remain considerably higher than pre-pandemic averages.
Our Raw Materials segment produced pretax earnings of approximately $10 million for the quarter. Overall, volumes were higher but lower metallics prices compressed margin for the segment.
Let me now turn our attention to the balance sheet and capital allocation. We began the year with a strong cash position and generated $460 million in cash from operating activities in the first quarter. These factors enabled Nucor to continue its balanced approach to capital allocation, enabling growth through investment, providing direct shareholder returns and maintaining a strong investment-grade rating.
On the growth front, during the first quarter, we continued to advance our strategy, deploying $670 million in capital spending, with progress made on several greenfield and expansion projects described earlier. The first quarter also saw Nucor return over $1.1 billion back to its shareholders. This includes $134 million in dividends and $1 billion in share repurchases, which reduced our share count by 5.5 million shares.
It has long been Nucor's practice to put capital to use or return it. This discipline was on display again in the first quarter, where repurchasing activity was higher than normal due to our sizable cash balance at the start of the year. Today, we continue to have the healthy cash and liquidity position, an enabler of our expected near-term CapEx plans and pipeline of acquisition opportunities. Nucor's balance sheet remains robust, a financial practice that both maintains a strong investment-grade rating and enables our long-term orientation and success. We ended the quarter with a total debt to capital ratio of approximately 24% and total leverage of roughly 1x trailing 12-month EBITDA.
Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2024, we expect consolidated earnings to be lower than the first quarter with reduced earnings from our steel mill and steel products segment, partly offset by modest improvements in earnings from our raw materials segment.
Lower earnings from our steel mills segment are the largest drivers of our reduced outlook for second quarter earnings. For this segment, we expect slightly higher volumes to be more than offset by lower realized prices. We anticipate our sheet business will be the largest driver of change in results for the steel mill segment and for the overall company.
Our steel products segment continues to moderate from historically high record levels of performance. For this segment in the second quarter, we expect higher volumes and lower realized pricing with the net effect being slightly lower earnings for the segment.
For the raw materials segment, stable volumes and improved margins should result in an overall higher profitability. Overall, across all businesses, backlogs remain healthy and in line with historic norms. However, the anticipated reduction in realized pricing for our steel mills and steel products segment in the second quarter are expected to lead to lower overall cash flows and earnings.
On a macro level, the U.S. economy appears to demonstrate near-term resilience. That strength, relative to recent past expectations, is an overall positive. In addition, select end markets, such as advanced manufacturing, data centers, and infrastructure, continue to show strength from secular trends. Taken collectively, near-term demand appears stable. Looking further out, we remain cautiously optimistic on demand fundamentals, given the positive trends of reshoring, repowering and rebuilding.
With that, we'd like to hear from you and answer any questions. Operator, please open the line for Q&A.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) So your first question comes from Martin Englert from Seaport Research Partners.

Martin John Englert

Within the steel mill segment, both bar and plate volumes were down double digits versus last year. Also, overall steel products volumes were down to a similar degree. Do you anticipate a similar trend of kind of double-digit declines in these products are going to continue in 2Q? Or is the sequential volume improvement expected going to start to offset this where we'll see something potentially lower?

Leon J. Topalian

Look, Martin, I certainly appreciate your question. We're -- as we look out, markets are moderating. And I think one of the important things to keep in mind more broadly is when you think about the context of record years like '21, '22, '23, we believe '24 is going to be another strong year, maybe not as strong as 2024 however.
When we (inaudible) play for our products, either flat or including volumes Q-over-Q, so we expect Q2's volumes to be a little substantial. But although better, excuse me, stronger, but as we look at pricing, it is moderating. But again, context is a really important thing. So for example, in the products group, while that's coming off the historic highs, it is way, way above what we saw pre-pandemic level. So we believe we've seen a pretty stable market out there regarding that group.
So I don't want to break out individual or break out individual pricing within those product groups. We're expecting Q2 to be a little softer. But again, it's relative. I still think there's going to be many of our product groups that are going to generate very robust returns for us and our shareholders.
And a couple of those that are -- as Steve mentioned in his opening remarks, as we look at markets across the segments, really keeps the heavy equipment having -- transportation is really the only area that we see declining in a little bit from an overall demand picture. Other than that, construction, automotive, energy, service centers, we see flat, stable or slightly improving as we get into Q2.

Martin John Englert

Great. Within steel mills, the estimated conversion cost looks like it declined modestly versus the prior quarter. Would you expect a similar sequential decline in 2Q on conversion costs per ton, given higher volumes, maybe something similar to the year-ago comparable period?

David A. Sumoski

Thanks for the question, Martin. This is Dave. Our costs are down slightly mainly because of the utilization rates P&L. (inaudible) and also Gallatin played a big role. I don't think that there's a whole lot more decline. So we think that the cost has stabilized. You can expect them to be maybe a little bit down but certainly than what you saw in the first quarter.

Martin John Englert

Okay, that's helpful. If I could, one last quick one. Raw materials expected to improve in 2Q on both DRI and the recycling operations. What do you believe is going to drive the improvement recycling, given recent pricing trends? And why has that been challenged from a margin strength perspective in recent quarters?

Noah C. Hanners

Martin, this is Noah. Let's talk about recycling first, then I want to go back and just hit on your point about DRIs. Well, really, the answer is margin compression in scrap pricing has been lower. We peaked in December. We've seen declining price month-over-month since, and we expect those prices to stabilize and stabilizing demand, as mentioned in the opening remarks. So we expect normalization of margin there.
We also are bringing online a new advanced metal recovery plant, our Bushnell facility in Florida, and we've incurred some additional start-up costs related to commissioning that facility. We'll work through those costs early in Q2, and you'll see our -- that'll contribute to more normalized margins in the recycling as well.
You mentioned DRI as well. I just want to make sure I provide some additional context there. We executed 2 extended outages in DRI in Q3 going into Q4. So we're back to running higher rates, higher volumes of DRI now that these plants are back performing consistently. And that's been advantageous to us through Q1 and will continue to be in Q2 as you see us running high rates of DRI in (inaudible). So we're able to not participate in higher-cost pig iron market and run higher rates of DRI. So our DRI plants are back to performing at the levels that we saw before the outages.

Martin John Englert

The -- you're adding the advanced and recycling separation technology to one facility right now. Can you frame up the cost impact as to what it was in 1Q for the start-up costs there and what you might anticipate in 2Q?

Noah C. Hanners

Yes. It was about $9 million additional in Q1. It'll be minimal in Q2. We're nearly fully commissioned. It is a stand-alone facility at Bushnell that allows us to recover higher rates of copper and aluminum. So it's not an add-on for one of our existing processes.

Martin John Englert

How many more of those do you have planned over the course of the year, if any?

Noah C. Hanners

Nothing else this year. We're going to continue to learn from this process. It's really state-of-the-art technology. We're going to take this and learn from the additional recovery we'll realize from this process and build out across the rest of our recycling platform and take this technology more broad.

Martin John Englert

And the crux of that is that allows you some increased optionality, what you would charge with prime or substitutes at that facility to switch to some degree to an upgraded trend product, right?

Noah C. Hanners

Yes. That's a different process. This is really for nonferrous material. So if you think about upgrading obsolete scrap or shredded scrap, we're doing that at one of our facilities now in Berkeley. We're producing about 2,500 tons per shift. And really, that is an offset of a replacement for prime scrap or pig iron in our process. So we've got that fully at scale now, and we'll continue to expand that capability to our other mills as well.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Curt Woodworth from UBS.

Curtis Rogers Woodworth

Yes. I was just hoping to drill down a little bit more into the downstream product categories. Last quarter, you talked about joist and deck quarter entry was up pretty substantially to start the year, yet we're still seeing pretty materially negative volume trends. So I'm just curious, did anything maybe changed in the quarter? Did that kind of proceed as you expected?
And then you commented that you do expect to see price stabilization in the back half of the year. But can you comment on maybe where margins stand today versus historical? I think historically, joist and deck fab was around 10% to 15% operating margin. I know it's much higher than that now. And then you also talked about joist and deck accounting for the majority of that division. Could you frame that out any more so we can have a better understanding of the EBIT contribution?

Leon J. Topalian

Yes. Curt, I'll kick us off, and then I'll turn it over to Brad and, let me see, if there's any comments he'd like to make on the specifics in terms of margins.
Look, our downstream products group, in general, has performed incredibly well over the last several years. And I'm not looking at the data in front of me, but we had a run of 10 or 11 quarters where that group generated $1 billion in net earnings or better. Their performance over the last several years has been nothing short of incredible. And so incredibly proud of what the team has been able to do, how they've come together to provide solutions, not just individual products, but taking care of our customers with the breadth of Nucor's strength coming together and, again, meeting the differentiated capability set in serving that market in a very different way. .
Again, I use the word moderating. We're seeing pricing moderating. But again, I'll let Brad speak to a little bit more to some of the details, what he's seen, what we're envisioning as we move forward in the year then go from there. Brad?

Brad Ford

Yes. Thanks, Leon. Thanks for the question. As you know, we produce many different downstream products, and this breadth of product offering continues to be a significant differentiator for us as we bring multiproduct solutions to our customers, specifically some areas of strength we're seeing right now in nonres, advanced manufacturing, data centers, institutional projects in healthcare and education.
As Steve noted, quarter 1 started out a bit slow for us on the product side, driven mainly by some extreme weather and associated job site delays. That said, and in light of current interest rate environment, we remain very optimistic about the resiliency in nonres construction.
On the joist and deck side specifically, again, started the year relatively slow, but we've seen quote and booking activity accelerate pretty rapidly over the last 45 days, with March industry bookings far outpacing what we saw in January and February, couple that with backlogs that remained strong. We still sit at about 25% above pre-pandemic levels, and we expect improved volumes as we noted in Q2.
On the pricing side, again, we've seen market price stabilize, remaining pretty consistent now for the last 2 quarters at levels far higher than historical norms, which we believe better reflect the value of the products and the solutions that we're bringing to the market.
As I think about the balance of this year and the megatrends we've been discussing, we're very optimistic. Product breadth and solutions-focused approach means we're well positioned to take advantage of these megatrends.
Like Leon said, I'm extremely proud of how our downstream products teams are executing, working together to take care of customers and continuing to drive the step change in earnings that we're generating.

Stephen D. Laxton

Yes. And Curt, I'll just add on to what Brad and Leon has said. This is Steve. And Leon talked about the profitability in a fundamentally different position. Our segment profits were over $0.5 billion from that segment this quarter. And if you go back pre pandemic, we averaged, call it, $450 million in EBITDA from that segment for a year. So we are fundamentally positioned different as a company today than we have been in the past. So when you reference this moderation, it has to be taken in a broader context of those along with demand trends that Brad referenced that are pretty good.
We're not going to get into the profitability of particular products within that segment. We've not done that. But what I will point you to, to give you a little bit of an orientation, again, Brad referenced that we have a very diverse set of downstream businesses, and 20% to 25% of our volume is from the joist and deck business, and roughly 20% to 25% is going to be pipe and tube and about 20% to 25% is rebar fabrication. So I hope that gives you a good mix of the products set in that segment.

Curtis Rogers Woodworth

No, that's helpful. And then as a follow-up, can you kind of comment on how you see infrastructure spending evolving this year? I mean, it seems looking at kind of the bar and plate volumes, there's still somewhat static demand trends going on there. And then can you give us an update on how the Brandenburg plate mill is doing and if you still expect the similar level of volumes you were guiding to last quarter?

Leon J. Topalian

I'll kick us off. And John, if I miss anything on the bar side that you want to comment on, please jump in, and then, Al, maybe touch on Brandenburg's ramp.
Curt, I'll just start with the 3 pieces of legislation and the great news that we've been talking about for way too long were passed, right? The money is there. It's in the books. Obviously, the furthest along in the 3 of those pieces of legislation are the CHIPS Act. We've got 83 new semiconductor products that have been announced, worth an estimated roughly $350 billion worth of CapEx that'll be built out in the coming years. To date, 23 of those have broken ground and begun construction. So that's real. Those orders are coming. We're seeing that and flowing through into our different product groups.
If we look at IRA next, that's sort of the next most advanced, behind the CHIPS Act where -- again, when we look at renewables, particularly solar for tubes, we're seeing those orders again hit our books, being produced, being shipped and moving.
And then last and probably the most lagging in that is IIJA or infrastructure that, again, [fund through there] federally, got to flow through the states and then execute on the individual projects and highways, bridges and the like. That's still in the very, very early innings.
And we're expecting in the years to come, next 2, 3, 4,or 5, we'll see all 3 of those continue to ramp. We still estimate that the total between the 3 is somewhere between 5 million and 8 million tons annually over the next 4 or 5 years that, again, will have a positive impact. The thing that -- as you look to Nucor and our strategy or growth play, where we're going, focusing, some of the megatrends are showing more than double-digit growth for the next 5 years like data centers, like towers and structures that we're in, that we're incredibly excited about, that we also think is going to be an incredible tailwind. And most of our group, not the least of which bar plate, sheet beams and products, will play a significant role.
Anything you'd like to add, John, on that?

John J. Hollatz

Yes. Yes, Leon. I would add, we're certainly, as Leon noted, seeing a slowdown, or not a slowdown, but a delay in the infrastructure spending. But as we look at building out commissioning our mills in Lexington, North Carolina and Kingston (sic) [Kingman], Arizona, we're going to be well positioned to take advantage of these dollars as they start to flow through. So we're optimistic about the long-term demand on long products and feel good about where we're going there.

Allen C. Behr

Yes. Curt, this is Al Behr. I'll just comment quickly on your question about Brandenburg.
The Brandenburg ramp-up continues to go according to plan for this year that we talked about on the last fall, which is about 0.5 million tons for the year. Our volume in Q1 was about 50,000 tons. Obviously, it's going to be heavily weighted to the second half, but I'd expect to double that tonnage in Q2 and double that again in Q3 and Q4.
So it continues to be a capability story. We shipped our first head plate for a tank railcar customer, so that's something new for us. We weren't able to take care of those customers before. It's a new capability. So we continue to tick off these new firsts for Nucor on how we can take care of our customers due to the capability Brandenburg gives us, and the volume will come with it in the second half.

Operator

And your next question comes from Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas.

Tristan Gresser

Maybe to start with a quick follow-up on the downstream outlook. With what you said about joist and deck and prices normalizing and the volume direction, is that fair to say that Q2 will mark the trough for the divisions?
And when we look at the H2 outlook, given the visibility you have with certain of your products, is it fair that we have more of a stable kind of environment from an earning perspective, but nothing yet to be more optimistic or positive in terms of earning momentum there?

Leon J. Topalian

Tristan, I want to make sure I understood the question. Is it really framing to how the moderation is going to flow through to quarter-to-quarter earnings?

Tristan Gresser

Yes, pretty much. And given -- if you have some visibility on certain of your products that are really big for the division, like joist and deck, and you're saying prices have stabilized, it looked to me that you have all the elements to say that Q2 would potentially mark the trough for the division. And then given the visibility you have, I'm just trying to understand if we're looking at more of a stable outlook in the second half of the year for the division, the steel product division. Or if given the positive commentary you mentioned on joist and deck, could we see even, I don't know, an uptick in prices, an uptick in margins and be a bit more positive on the earning direction for H2?

Stephen D. Laxton

Yes. Thanks, Tristan. This is Steve. I'll field this, and Brad can clean up any misses for that gap. .
But yes, we -- particularly with joist and deck, given the lead times and backlogs that we get out there that are pretty healthy, we've seen very good price stability, relative price stability over the last, call it, quarter or so. That does lead you to have more confidence in what the back half of the year might look like. I've been around too long to say that we're going to call a trough at this point. There's too much variability in our business model overall but certainly, for joist and deck, that's a very, very positive trend in terms of stabilization.
And just sort of like Curt's questions earlier around the diversity of the downstream products segment, there's other parts of that part of our portfolio that don't have that much linked to their backlogs and lead times. So that's why I'd be a little hesitant to say that second quarter will be trough. But I would characterize your question as affirming the relative positive position of joist and deck.

Brad Ford

Yes. Steve, the only thing I would add is from a volume perspective, nonres construction is somewhat seasonal. So Q1 tends to be a bit lower volumes on the products side. Q2 and Q3 are usually more robust, and that's what we're seeing right now.

Tristan Gresser

All right. That's really helpful. And you discussed a little bit data center and your recent acquisition. Am I right to understand that when you talk about the complementarity of certain downstream products, that those data centers will use joist and deck and other products? And if you could maybe give us a sense, quantified sense of how big this could be as a driver right now and maybe in the future.

Leon J. Topalian

Yes. I'll kick this off, and maybe ask Chad Utermark who's overall for M&A and then new businesses that we acquire, Tristan.
But we're really excited about the opportunity that the long-term projections are. Boston Consulting Group is projecting about 12% to 14% year-over-year growth in data center construction over the next 4 or 5 years. Couple that with -- again, just a little bit of a pivot here, couple that with the demand of power that many of these large hyperscalers need, you're talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of megawatts.
So the infrastructure build-out require -- and the energy requirements are prompting a few things. One, we're going to continue to grow in this space. Two, under Chad's leadership as we make these acquisitions, and I shared earlier in my opening comments, we now have a data center group that will provide holistic solutions to our hyperscalers and other major data center builders. And so again, these are long-term, long-established relationships that we have in the marketplace, and again, you're going to see Nucor continue to move forward.
Many of the questions we often get on these earnings calls are, what are you going to do with the money? What are you going to do with the cash you're generating or sitting on? And again, we returned over 130% of that back to shareholders in Q1.
But our focus, without getting too far, is going to be in the megatrends in this economy that we see are going to continue to generate incredibly strong and robust growth and returns for our shareholders, data centers being one of them. Southwest makes the sort of pathways for cool air to come in and hot air to get out. In terms of that data center, the 147 team members that we look forward to welcoming into the new family and -- or into the Nucor family.
But Chad, any other details that you'd share in the market in general and Southwest?

D. Chad Utermark

Thank you, Leon. Let me start by saying, we've been in this data center space for a while. Our Nucor Buildings Group, along with our joist and deck and our beam products, have supplied a lot of building structures for this space. They will continue to do that. They have great relationships with a lot of the hyperscalers and colocators.
We actually entered what I kind of call the racking or inside the data center, think of maybe the furniture in there about a year ago through our racking division. And in '23, we saw some tremendous growth there. And then we were able to acquire SWDP 3 weeks ago, as Leon mentioned. And these 147 team members, I mean, they're right down in the middle of the data center explosion. This acquisition is going to give us new capabilities to serve this growing market. And it's kind of hard to put a dollar figure on how big the inside of the data center, this furniture space that we're playing in is, but we estimate it to be probably north of $2 billion and growing, as Leon mentioned, double digits. So we really feel like it's going to bolster Nucor's opportunity to be a preferred supplier to many of the nation's hyperscalers, the key colocators, who are front and center on the data center buildout.
Kind of as a note, SWDP also installs their products, which we're really excited to be a part of that and bring those assets into Nucor and possibly even install other products that we make, sprinkler piping and other things that we produce. So we're excited about the space. We're excited about the products we have. We're excited about the relationships we have with the key players. We already have those relationships. But the phones are already ringing, and we're looking at really growing significantly in this space.

Tristan Gresser

All right, that's very clear. And maybe a final question on Econiq. Do you have any volume target? Or can you disclose a little bit on the volume how much you're selling or you target to sell in coming years? And if I look at the carbon intensity at which you're selling, if you were to sell that product in Europe, you probably get a premium, a selling premium of EUR 150, EUR 200 per ton. So it can be pretty significant. The U.S. market is obviously much different. But I was wondering if you could share, as some other peers have done, the type of premiums you're looking at for this tonnage.

Leon J. Topalian

Yes. Tristan, again, Nucor is excited about our work that we've done. And regarding the entire sustainability front, again, while other nations are looking to revamping their entire portfolio and spend tens of billions of dollars to try and someday, 20, 30, 40 years down the road look like Nucor, we're not standing still. We're able to take the billions and billions that we're making today and continue to grow in places like data centers and racking and the investments in towers and structures and automotive and construction and providing solutions and capabilities for our customers for decades to come.
But when it comes to sustainability, it really becomes a very nuanced answer to your question. For example, the Mercedes-Benz relationship we just announced was very important to them that we looked hard at our Scope 2 emissions, right, that the renewable energy incoming to Nucor and how we produce these steels was critically important. But make no mistake, Nucor was the first out of the gate, at scale, to provide 100% net-0 carbon-free steel, and we can do that at scale.
A year ago, I think I used the figure that Nucor's capability in that realm was somewhere around the ability to ship at least 1 million tons. We can do more than that. But really, what we're trying to do is identify the solutions for our customers that need different things. So there are some customers, for example, that don't want us to use regs or offsets to be able to get to that net-0 target. Okay, well, our starting point already at 0.4 is hundreds of percentage points below the traditional or extractive steel-making process and our integrated competitors. So our starting point becomes incredibly low.
And then when you look to regional differences, there are different regions across the U.S. that Nucor operate in that are able to lower that even further. And then certain steel mills, like Sedalia, that are operating at 0.09 or in that range. And so we have a unique opportunity, again with the breadth of Nucor across the geographic footprint, to really meet the needs today and long term.
Lastly, and I'd just make the final comment, and Dan, anything you want to add or Greg, is it took Nucor -- we were very deliberate before we came out with our net-0 target. We didn't just jump out there in 2021, and there was a lot of pressure to do so. We did it when we believed there was a pathway in our control. We're not looking for government subsidies or handouts or technologies that would make the OpEx of steelmaking, quite frankly, unsellable. We're looking for the things that we can directly control and produce a true net-0 product.
And again, we're excited about that. We're well on the way to that. You'll see continued improvement in our overall performance. But again, leaders lead, and we're going to be out front. We're going to stay there. We're going to continue to make the investments for the long term to position ourselves well for those customers that need and require Econiq steels.

Daniel R. Needham

And Tristan, this is Dan. What I would add to that is if you think about Econiq, we rolled that out a couple of years ago. It was about a net-0 product for Scopes 1 and 2. The market's evolved quite a bit since then. And what I would tell you, the sustainability is absolutely a personal journey for a lot of these companies. And so we've evolved as the market has, and we're offering what the customers need. So we're very flexible. As we just announced the Mercedes, that was an Econiq-RE product around Scope 2 because that's what the customer has desired. So we're very flexible as we approach that.
Your last question was around premiums. I'm not going to get into specifics around what that is. But there absolutely are premiums that we're achieving and realizing here in the U.S. And if you look at how that's shaping out in Europe, I'd say it's similar to what's happening in the United States.

Operator

And your next question comes from Timna Tanners from Wolfe Research.

Timna Beth Tanners

Was hoping for a little more color on the outlook because we're struggling a bit to get to the decline quarter-over-quarter. I think it has a bit to do with the fact that you pointed out, which is, seasonally, demand does improve usually in the second quarter for your key end markets. And so in light of that, maybe it would be helpful to discuss the corporate eliminations impact, if that's sticky into the second quarter of some of those in-process inventories to some of your projects, are going to remain elevated or how we can think about that, if you can help us a bit with that guidance.

Leon J. Topalian

Okay. Timna, I'll kick us off and maybe ask Steve to jump in if I go too far into the accounting hole of corporate elims. But look, it is a good point because one of the incredible strengths of Nucor is our diversity. Our ability to provide a wide variety in a capability set for our customers is unmatched in North America.
Well, when you -- we, for the quarter, had $8 billion in revenue for the quarter. About $1.5 billion of that is internal. So it's shipping to hundreds of locations across Nucor. So the magnitude of our strength of having about 20% of our overall shipments go internal means that you tracking down the ebbs and flows of every potential property elim across hundreds of locations in 40 states, and it's an inexact science. And again, our team works really hard to try to do that. But to your point, it's not a miss in terms of well, you just missed it and it does come back. It will flow back through into Nucor in the weeks and months and maybe the next couple of quarters. So you're going to see that boost as they sell their products to their final end customers.
So look, I get your point in sort of -- I think the way you're asking it is would that not balanced out what we're seeing and getting a little more stable in our Q-over-Q performance. And again, against that backdrop, I would tell you, we still see the market softening a little bit into Q2. But again, you're optimistic back half of the year sort of stabilizes. And again, I think Steve answered it well. I don't want to call Q2 the trough and the low point at this point. However, we do see strengthening, and we do think the back half of the year and, really, the overall year for Nucor is going to be pretty strong.
Steve, anything you'd add?

Stephen D. Laxton

Yes. Timna, this is Steve. The only thing I would add to what Leon said is, and you're very knowledgeable of the innings of our business and know how our products flow through the different businesses we have. And we do see volume pickups in both steel and products. And so you should reasonably expect that the corporate elims might look different for the second quarter than they did in the first quarter.
Having said that, the pricing pressure on both mills and products are expected to give us a little bit lower results in the second quarter. So I think your question was a correct characterization of some of those pluses and minuses as we look at Q2.

Timna Beth Tanners

Okay. Yes, that's helpful. I just -- and if there's any way to break out any more corporate eliminations guidance or color going forward. It's just a bit tricky, as you mentioned. I know it's for you. It's tricky for us.
So my second question is on the buyback cadence because obviously, first quarter was a pretty big amount. And as you pointed out, you have a huge amount on your balance sheet, which you could dig into. But how do we think about that cadence going forward? How do you make those decisions? Or what could that look like, given that you have the spare capacity but you hadn't chosen to deploy it as aggressively until this quarter?

Stephen D. Laxton

Yes. Timna, this is Steve again. I think what you -- the first quarter is really an excellent piece of evidence of how Nucor thinks about managing its balance sheet. And that's over, number one, it's very long-term perspective that we take. And number two, it's a rigor and a discipline around we put our capital to use or if we can't find the right uses for it to create value, we give it back to shareholders. And that's something we've done for years and years and that was obviously (inaudible) in the first quarter.
One of the reasons we get the fair amount of liquidity at the end of the year last year was because of potential M&A pipeline activity. And we felt comfortable releasing that capital, if you want to call it that, in the first quarter at a higher rate than we normally do. We still sit with an excellent balance sheet, great leverage position, good liquidity, an active M&A pipeline, continued commitment to growth. And so we're striking that balance. It looks maybe a little bit choppy because of the amount of dollars quarter-over-quarter from the fourth quarter, but we were blacked out parts of the fourth quarter from some of the share buybacks. So that's part of why you're seeing the change if you're thinking about quarter-over-quarter numbers.

Timna Beth Tanners

So as for M&A?

Leon J. Topalian

Sorry, I was just going to say, look, to get a little more qualitative, if you asked in sort of roundabout way, Nucor's probably not going to sit on $5.5 billion, $6 billion of cash on a normal basis. We're thinking hard about that. There are some other activities in the M&A pipeline we're looking at that can't get any further than that to tell you. But again, you've watched our company long enough to know our return metrics, how we think about rewarding our shareholders and -- either through dividends and share repurchases. And you can expect that mindset and focus will continue well into the future.

Operator

And your next question comes from Bill Peterson from JPMorgan.

William Chapman Peterson

Yes. I wanted to kind of come back to the plate market. What are your views on the market, given elevated inventories, apparent consumption turning down for the last 12 months? And then I guess as we -- I guess, how do you think -- what are the key drivers that will unlock this market? And then especially taking into account you are ramping Brandenburg, it sounds like you're planning to double over the next few quarters. Just wanted to get your thoughts on the market as we look out over the next several quarters.

Allen C. Behr

Bill, this is Al Behr. As we look at the plate market, the consumptive part of the market remains pretty steady. When you look at power transmission as an area of strength. Bridge work is an area of strength. That's bridge work that's not necessarily related to the infrastructure build yet. I think that's coming. That will be coming, and John shared his comments around rebar to that effect. Military work remains strong and will probably tick up some. That's a low-volume work but it's very high-margin work. It's highly specialized plate, a lot of it is (inaudible) plate.
But there's still some weaker segments. Vertical construction or high-rise construction remains very, very weak. Barge is kind of an opportunistic market segment and there's just not a lot of activity there right now. If you look at heat, and Leon had comments around heat, that's starting to soften. It's coming down from high but it's really softened in the last 12 months.
So I mean, when we boil that down to the year, it looks probably similar to last year. It's just fairly steady on the consumptive side. And then what comes in and out as a service center is they buy according to what they feel is best for their business. So you do see a lot of restocking in Q1 this year. That's probably the biggest driver of our volumes being down. We saw a lot of that last year, and that drove volumes higher.
When we look through the rest of the year -- and we think it remains fairly steady with maybe some sliding continuing in the second half just because election cycles. On the nonres construction side, it tend to create some stall (inaudible) as many decisions. Until the election happens and then regardless of the results, the outlook was not known -- as known as we move forward.
It's probably a bigger story on the margin side for plate anyway, that we continue to see squeeze on the margin side as we fight imports. Imports are a problem. They're higher, they're trending higher. And we continue to have some so-called trading partners that continue to abuse, countries I'm talking about, our agreements and our trade laws. And we'll continue to fight that commercially. And part of that is just having to compete in the marketplace, and it creates margin space. But we'll also compete with that in any other way we know, which is regulatory and making our trade officials and elected officials aware of it. And we've got to hold those countries to account to abide by the agreements that we make.
So hopefully, that provides some color for you on the plate side. And that's all along the backdrop of Brandenburg ramping, and we went through that. But that's the way we look at the plate market and what our outlook is.

William Chapman Peterson

Yes. And then coming to the Customer Spot Index that you employed, I guess what were you looking to achieve? And how do you address concerns that this could potentially compete with indices? You commented that you're doing it for customers, but is this something customers have been asking for? Can you share any sort of feedback you've received thus far from customers? And I mean, I guess if we were to take it one step further, any expectations to expand this type of thing to other steel formats? Are customers asking for other products?

Leon J. Topalian

Yes. So look, great question. I'll kick it off and Rex Query, who heads up our sheet group, if there's additional comments you'd like to make, please jump in. .
But look, we're excited. And you asked one great question, but within that, an important question, and that was were our customers asking for this. I would tell you, unequivocally, yes, they have been asking for this. And so I'm not going to name other indices. We're obviously aware of them all. Our goal was simply to provide a more consistent, reliable, predictable, and relevant price on our top band spots [cost] period, providing consistent and shorter lead time window for them and provide real-time pricing on a weekly basis that was relevant. And so our commitment to them is to maintain a relative price page each and every week. And so again, the part of that and the driver for that, yes, our customers were asking.
And also, the whipsaw that we see in ups and down markets to try and shrink that volatility to create more stabilization in the marketplace, again, giving them better information to make better value decisions for their business and get out of the price speculation that we see all too often in the hot-band market. So those really were the drivers.
As we look at -- again, it's only been a few weeks. How this evolves and moves forward, we'll wait and see. We'll allow our customers the opportunity to decide that rather than us deciding that. They'll be the ones that provide the feedback to us that, yes, we love it. We like it. We want to use this. We think it's the right indice. And again, our job and our goal is to make that incredibly easy and transparent.
Rex, anything you'd add to that?

K. Rex Query

Bill, I'll only add a couple of comments. I mean, Leon covered it well.
Really, as we develop the CSP, we look at the cycles over the last several years, and it was very predictable. As pricing started to firm, we would see customers enter into speculative buying. They would pull ahead demand. Lead times would then extend. Pricing would generally go up beyond really supply-demand balances, inviting imports in. Inventories would balloon, and then we had to work that off. And you could see orders stop and pricing fall dramatically.
So as we look at that, we said, how can we create stability, potentially avoid speculative buying. And it's through us offering a current look at what we see spot pricing to our customers in the marketplace and maintaining our lead times so they can count on what's happened. And that's really what we looked at. And we've got positive feedback at this point from our customers, as Leon stated.

Operator

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to hand over the call to Leon Topalian for closing remarks.

Leon J. Topalian

In closing, I just want to thank our Nucor teammates for a great start to 2024. Let's continue to stay focused on our most important value, to help safety and well-being of each and every one of our 32,000 team members that make up the Nucor family. And thank you to our customers and shareholders for the trust that you placed us both in the order books and the orders that you give us as well as the valuable shareholder capital that you trust us with. We will work hard each and every day to earn your trust and your continued business.
Thank you, and have a great day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.