Good morning, and welcome to Nucor's third quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise, and today's call is being recorded. After the speakers' prepared remarks, I will provide instructions for callers wishing to ask questions. I would now like to introduce Chris Jacobi, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin your call.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Nucor's third quarter earnings review and business update. Leading our call today is Leon Topalian, Chair and CEO, along with Steve Laxton, President and COO, and Jack Sullivan, CFO. Other members of Nucor's executive team are also here with us today, and may participate during the Q&A portion of the call. Yesterday, we posted our third quarter earnings release and investor presentation on Nucor's IR website. 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 disclosures along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures.
With that, let's turn the call over to Leon.
Thanks, Chris. I want to begin by recognizing our 33,000 teammates for making the summer of 2026 our safest summer ever. Summer brings added safety challenges, and our team met them with focus and determination. That's something to be proud of and it reflects our commitment to the most important value we have, safety. As we finish the year, let's keep looking out for one another and make sure every one of our team members goes home safely at the end of every shift. Turning to our third quarter financial results, Nucor delivered its strongest quarter in more than three years, with approximately $2.3 billion of EBITDA and earnings of $5.80 per share. Jack's going to unpack our results in more detail, but many of the themes we've highlighted throughout the year continue this quarter.
Strong demand across key end markets, growing contributions from recent investments, and federal policies that support a healthy domestic steel sector. With the capital spending moderating as major projects near completion, that strength is increasingly showing up in Nucor's free cash flow. We also remain committed to meaningful shareholder returns, returning $629 million in dividends and buybacks during the quarter, bringing our year-to-date total to nearly $1.4 billion. Operationally, the Nucor team is executing exceptionally well across each of our business segments. In our steel mills, quarterly shipments exceeded 7.2 million tons, setting another shipment record for the third consecutive quarter. This would not be possible without the investments we've made over the past six years, many of which are now online and contributing to our results. For example, the plate group set another quarterly shipment record.
Brandenburg shipped approximately 240,000 tons or roughly one-third of the group's total shipments. The team has done an amazing job bringing the mill's full capabilities online and advancing customer qualifications. The bar group also set another quarterly shipment record. Our Lexington micromill has had a very successful ramp-up since coming online last year. The team became EBITDA positive in March and has built on that progress, reaching a utilization rate of nearly 80% in the third quarter. We've also seen very strong results from Kingman, Arizona, and our micromills at Frostproof and Sedalia, as well as our upgraded Kankakee mill helped to deliver our best merchant bar quarter in several years. In steel products, we saw a significant improvement in quarterly earnings. Higher shipments and a notable inflection in pricing led to margin expansion across most of our major product groups.
Joist and Deck had a standout quarter with shipments up about 20% and realized pricing increasing by $110 a ton. In raw materials, our Louisiana DRI plant has begun capturing CO2 emissions for transport and storage through our project with ExxonMobil. The project is designed to capture and store up to 800,000 tons of CO2 annually, supporting our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals and strengthening Nucor's position as one of the world's cleanest steel producers. Congratulations to our entire team in Louisiana on this achievement. The strength we are seeing in today's domestic steel market is being driven by healthy economic conditions and broad-based investment across key end markets. Nucor is benefiting from these conditions because trade policy improvements over the past decade have created a more level playing field.
In particular, vigorous trade law enforcements and strengthening Section 232 measures are allowing us to realize a greater share of the strong demand environment in the U.S. Finished steel imports are down more than 13% year over year and down 24% compared to 2024. Fair trade supports strong markets. Unfair trade distorts them. However, import volumes have been increasing in recent months, including a massive surge from South Korea, despite the Section 232 tariffs. From decades of experience fighting for a level playing field, we know we must always stay vigilant. Therefore, we will work closely with the administration to ensure trade measures remain robust and effective. Make no mistake, demand is very healthy. Even as imports have crept higher this year, domestic shipments have risen in each of the past three quarters.
Strong market fundamentals and favorable trade policies will continue to support a positive outlook for the domestic steel industry. With that, I'll turn it over to Steve for an update on our growth initiatives and market outlook. Steve?
Thank you, Leon, and thank you all for joining us this morning. We're in the final stages of construction at our new sheet mill project in West Virginia, and we're commissioning equipment across the site. I want to thank the team in West Virginia for their hard work and excellent safety performance throughout the multi-year construction phase. They've kept the project on time and on budget while reaching several important milestones. In September, the melt shop produced its first heat, and in October, we started shipping coils from the pickle line to our downstream Nucor divisions. By December, we expect to run our first coils through the hot mill, cold mill, and construction-grade gal lines. As we complete commissioning, the team is preparing to ramp production in early 2027.
Our priority will be to operate safely and reliably while steadily increasing production toward our 50% utilization target by the end of 2027. Our sheet mill network provides an important advantage as production begins. By gradually shifting base load tons from other Nucor sheet mills to West Virginia, we can provide the new mill a steady base of orders to support a successful ramp through 2027 and 2028. As with any project of this scale and complexity, we expect startup costs to remain elevated in 2027 at levels similar to or higher to those in 2026. Turning to our Berkeley, South Carolina sheet mill, our new automotive-grade galvanizing line began production early this month. We expect utilization rates for the new gal line to reach 50% in the second quarter of next year, on its way to full run rate by the end of 2027.
At full production, this new line will add 500,000 tons of annual galvanizing capacity. Taken together, our investments in West Virginia and South Carolina enhance Nucor's ability to serve the automotive market, where we are relatively underweighted today. As both projects ramp and complete customer qualifications, we will build on the strong relationships we already have in place with many of North America's leading automakers. We are not simply waiting for these investments to ramp. While North American automotive production is essentially unchanged year to date, Nucor's flat-rolled shipments to automotive customers are up 4%. As we grow our automotive shipments, we're expanding what we can offer with the capabilities we have in place today. Recently, we commercialized exposed quality galvanized steel for the exterior panel of an SUV platform. We accomplished this using thin-slab casting, demonstrating Nucor's innovation in EAF steel making.
As new growth projects come online, we will have even more opportunities to expand our position in the automotive market. Moving to our towers and structures business, we are encouraged by how each of our facilities is progressing and the strength of our customer demand. Our Decatur, Alabama facility is on track to be EBITDA positive this month, while our Crawfordsville, Indiana facility began full production in the third quarter and is expected to follow a similar path toward profitability. Our Brigham City, Utah facility remains on track to reach full production by mid-2027. We are now qualified with more than 30 utilities, with additional customer qualifications underway, and we have entered into multi-year agreements with several of the largest utilities in the U.S. That momentum is reflected in our order backlog, which has more than doubled since the start of the year and extends into early 2028.
Based on the strength of customer demand, we recently announced a combined $165 million of investments to increase the capacity of our Indiana and Alabama facilities by about 50%. As a result, we now expect our long-term annual EBITDA contribution from our towers and structures business to reach approximately $200 million, up from the $150 million previously forecast. Turning to our demand outlook. Nucor continues to expect steel mill shipments growth to finish closer to the higher end of our 5%-10% range for 2026, supported by several durable underlying drivers. Let me touch on a few of these. First, infrastructure. While the IIJA was passed about five years ago, the infrastructure investment activity it was meant to spur is still accelerating. State-level decision making and permitting have, in many cases, taken years to complete, extending construction activity over a longer period of time.
Today, many projects are underway, but new ones are still being approved, and over $135 billion of funding has yet to be spent as of August. In addition, steel requirements for the border wall are substantial, and stadium construction shows no signs of slowing. Second, reshoring and digital infrastructure. The COVID pandemic highlighted the fragility of our domestic supply chain and underscored the need to manufacture more in the U.S. In support of federal actions on tax, trade, and regulatory fronts have helped stimulate considerably higher levels of manufacturing construction. This is broader than the chip fab activity first encouraged by the CHIPS Act and now includes sectors like pharmaceuticals, automotive, appliance, and electrical components. Data center construction activity has gone from a small niche to a significant driver of non-residential building construction activity. Finally, energy.
Rising demand, aging infrastructure, and the need to strengthen the grid are driving substantial investment in the power sector. Utilities plan to spend nearly $1.4 trillion over the next five years, with steel-intensive investments ranging from generation and substations to transmission upgrades. Beyond power, we are seeing strong demand across the oil and gas sector, including LNG terminals and pipeline construction, and growing domestic production of oil country tubular goods. We see these trends as durable, and we believe Nucor is incredibly well-positioned with our world-class manufacturing team and broad portfolio to meet the needs of our customers across these diverse applications. With that, let me turn the call over to Jack. Jack?
Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, Nucor generated net earnings of $1.3 billion or $5.80 per share. This exceeded the midpoint of our guidance range by roughly 3.5%, primarily due to higher than expected shipments and higher average selling prices in our steel mills segment. Let me now review our third quarter performance by segment. The steel mill segment generated $1.8 billion of pre-tax earnings, an increase of $232 million from the prior quarter. As Leon mentioned, we set another quarterly shipment record with volumes up 2%. Average selling prices rose across the segment led by our sheet and structural groups. These increases were partially offset by higher costs. As a reminder, the second quarter benefited from $130 million in cash refunds that reduced cost of goods sold, and that benefit did not recur in the third quarter.
Turning to steel products, we generated pre-tax earnings of $465 million, an increase of $112 million from the prior quarter. Volumes increased 6% and average selling prices rose 7%. The improvement in pricing was particularly encouraging, as realized pricing in our downstream businesses is catching up with the higher steel input costs that compressed margins earlier this year. As a result, the EBITDA margin for our steel product segment increased approximately 200 basis points from the second quarter. In our raw material segment, we generated pre-tax earnings of $105 million, compared to $146 million in the prior quarter, reflecting lower pricing and shipments. Pre-operating and start-up costs totaled $124 million compared to $120 million in the prior quarter. Turning to capital allocation and the balance sheet, we generated $1.6 billion of free cash flow in the third quarter, bringing our year-to-date total to nearly $2.7 billion.
Cash from operations has grown from $900 million in the first quarter to over $2.2 billion in the third as we benefit from healthy market conditions and growing contributions from our recent investments. At the same time, capital spending is moderating as our major projects near completion. We have deployed just under $1.9 billion in CapEx year to date, with the majority going toward growth projects. For the full year, we expect our capital expenditures to finish at or slightly below our original $2.5 billion estimate. Our free cash flow supports meaningful returns to shareholders. During the quarter, we returned $629 million through dividends and share repurchases, up approximately $150 million from the second quarter. Year to date, we have returned nearly $1.4 billion or 42% of net earnings. We remain committed to returning at least 40% of net earnings to shareholders on an annual basis.
All of this is underpinned by our strong balance sheet and investment-grade credit profile. We ended the quarter with approximately $3.6 billion in cash and liquidity of $4.3 billion. Total debt as a percentage of capital was 23%, and our credit ratings remain the highest of any North American steel producer. Looking ahead, we expect our CapEx to decline further in 2027, extending the step down from peak spending in 2024 and 2025. We will share more detail on our 2027 capital allocation plans on our year-end call in January. Turning to our fourth quarter outlook, we expect consolidated earnings to be in line with or modestly higher than the third quarter results. In steel mills, we expect stable earnings as higher average pricing across all product groups is offset by seasonally lower volumes and higher costs.
The cost increase reflects lower fixed cost absorption and higher start-up spending at West Virginia as we add teammates and prepare to ramp production. In steel products, higher pricing is expected to offset the impact of lower volumes, resulting in stable earnings for the segment. In raw materials, we expect slightly lower earnings, primarily due to lower realized DRI pricing. Finally, we expect to benefit from lower intersegment profit eliminations that should reduce corporate and elimination expense relative to the third quarter. As 2026 draws to a close, we are excited about Nucor's earnings prospects for 2027. Healthy, durable demand across key end markets, another step up in contributions from new growth projects, and supportive federal policy all position us for another strong year.
With the broadest range of capabilities in the North American steel market, we are confident the Nucor team will deliver on that opportunity for our customers and shareholders. With that, we would like to hear from you and answer any questions you may have. Operator, please open the line for questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Nick Cash with Goldman Sachs & Co. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. The first question I have is, you have been running at record shipment levels this year and suggesting this will be closer to the 10% range, driven by strengthened demand over the past few quarters as well as backlog visibility. I just wanted to know, as you think into 2027, how much further organic volume growth do you think Nucor's existing system can generate before considering contribution from West Virginia? Then which end markets give you the most confidence in another year of growth?
Hey, Nick, it's Leon. I'll kick us off. I want to begin with something I shared in the opening. Nucor's just come through the safest summer ever. If we look back at our history, the months of June, July, and August have historically been the most dangerous and the most opportunity for injuries across our entire enterprise. Our team set out a very audacious goal to target no injuries for those three months. While we didn't meet that, we ended up with the safest three months in the history of Nucor, and now are putting those efforts towards the safest fall. The thing to really remember in all of that is every one of those numbers that we track has a name, every name has a family, and every family deserves to be complete.
Our greatest responsibility as leaders in this company is to the men and women of this amazing company of ours. Thank you, team, for what you do and how you take care of our customers and for working safe each and every day. Nick, as you talk, look, as we came off the highs of 2021 and 2022, 2023 was an okay year. 2024 and 2025 were very tepid. Look, our investment strategies, our capital allocation philosophy has been to invest for the long term. Over the last six and a half years, you've seen Nucor deploy about $19 billion worth of capital, half in organic growth and the other half in M&A.
It's the ultimate strategy of playing to where the puck's going to be, not where it's at, understanding our customer demand, understanding the capability sets that are needed by our customers, and building and creating those opportunities to win. That is exactly what you're seeing Nucor do today, executing on an incredibly strategic plan to grow the core, expand beyond, and live our culture. We've had the best quarter in three years. We're on the track to have the safest year in all of our entire history. 2026 is shaping up to be the third-best financial year in the history of our company, and we fully expect that 2027 will be even stronger. Where's that coming from? The end market probably that gets more attention in the entire economy is data centers.
While that's a major part in some of our product groups, it represents about 15%, one five percent of our entire backlog and as an enterprise. It's a strong end market. So is chips and technology and hardware, natural gas power plants, LNG export terminals, nuclear, utilities, pharma. Heavy equipment is coming back in gangbusters. Shipbuilding, military and defense spending, appliance and HVAC. I would tell you in my 31 years at Nucor, Nick, I am seeing early the strongest demand environment across the breadth of Nucor's products. Couple that with the investments that we've made in West Virginia, Brandenburg, Lexington, our micromill in Lexington, Kingman, Arizona, Crawfordsville's paint line, Berkeley's galvanizing line, and Brandenburg's plate mill are all now firing, where, again, as Steve mentioned just a minute ago, West Virginia will fully commission this year and begin its full ramp in 2027.
We are at the tip of the spear of the greatest economic growth in our nation, and I couldn't be more optimistic about what 2027 and beyond is going to bring. Finally, I would tell you with the last part of all of that is that CapEx unwinds of our spend into 2027. It skyrockets the free cash flow on top of the margins that we're earning, on top of the contributions that the new investments are already having and will continue to ramp into 2027. It means we're fueled for growth, disciplined growth, just like we have over the last six years. That money is not burning a hole in our pocket, and if we don't have a great use for it, you're going to get it back.
Over the last 16 years, we've returned nearly $15 billion to our shareholders through dividends or share buybacks, and we will continue to focus on that. However, I can tell you there are massive areas of growth for our company that we're targeting now, mostly in the expand beyond categories. But we are just getting warmed up. I couldn't be more optimistic about 2027 and beyond in the future of Nucor.
That is all really fantastic color. I really appreciate it. Just one quick follow-up. You mentioned, just on the cost side, costs were a little bit higher than expected. I think mills margins were a little bit lighter than expected, acknowledging the $130 million tailwind from last quarter. Could you provide any further color on any inflationary pressures you might be experiencing? I know you mentioned some lower fixed cost absorption, but any other impacts experienced in the quarter? Then for the full Q guide of flat earnings, can you provide any additional color on how these impacts, or how these costs could impact margin trajectory into year-end?
Yeah, Nick, good morning. It's Jack. You're right, conversion costs did tick up some in Q3, but I think we need to put a few things into perspective here. Nucor's EBITDA margin expanded to over 20%, and that's our highest level in the past three years. So we continue to see margin expansion, even with some of that conversion cost per ton creep. But in terms of specifics and where we saw that, I'd point you to certain consumables, freight, certainly energy, and just some other services. But keep in mind, when you're running at high utilization rates, particularly in hot demand environments like we're seeing right now, you do tend to see some costs creep up just to keep operations running. Maybe that's overtime pay or some higher energy costs when, in softer markets, we may have chosen to curtail in higher energy cost environments.
And you pointed out correctly, we also didn't benefit from the tariff refunds that occurred in Q2. The other thing unique to Q3 when you're comparing it to Q2, we did have more planned outages in the quarter. And of course, that led to some lower fixed cost absorption. I'd say your last question about looking ahead to Q4, I think you could expect a modest uptick in conversion costs Q over Q. Again, we do have some outages in Q4. We've pointed to some gradual increase in pre-operating startup costs as we get West Virginia closer to ramp up. I think those would be the things I'd point to.
Thank you so much. I'll pass it on.
Thanks, Nick.
Your next question comes from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, team. Congrats on the quarter, and thanks for taking my questions. I would like to unpack the shipment guide in 4Q. You are still planning on being towards the high end of the range, which would be like 10% year-over-year growth. But I guess if you ran it through, it would imply around down 10% quarter-on-quarter, which would be more like 2021, 2022, as compared to the last few years, which were below that in terms of seasonality. I believe you have two less shipping days. Are you taking into account other things like holidays or maybe you can characterize how much downtime you are expecting? Or just trying to get a sense, can there be upside to this number?
Yeah. Hey, Bill, it is Jack. All good questions. You are right. We do have two fewer fiscal days in Q4, compared to Q3, 89 versus 91. But also to your point, there are four additional non-shipping days really just due to Q4 holidays when you think of Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, a few days around Christmas Eve and New Year's. So, in aggregate, you are talking five or six fewer days of shipping compared to the prior quarter, plus the added risk of some winter weather in certain regions. Q4 planned outages I just mentioned. Some of those outages are at our largest mills, and so planned downtime relative to Q3 actually has a few more days. So keep that in mind. But I think it is also important to recognize we are coming into Q4 off of record high Q3 shipment quarter.
I think sometimes it is easier to ship through outage season during softer markets, a little bit harder to do so when the mills are already operating at such a high level. There is just less slack in the system. But, I think if you looked historically, quarterly shipments, Q3 to Q4 have trended down about 7%, and so that may be a useful planning assumption, as you are looking to fine-tune your models. I think the silver lining here, though, Bill, is we have guided you to steel mills earnings having relatively flat quarter-over-quarter and really that is just for all the obvious reasons, we are going to see some volume softness due to seasonality and the outages, but stronger pricing outlook sort of neutralizes that impact. But rest assured, our goal is to ship every ton possible.
Yep. No, that is a perfect color. Thanks for that. Earlier, I think you said that your data center was something around 15%. I am not sure if that is a mill statement or a product statement, but I am trying to get a sense for how big that opportunity, I guess, is for you as we think about 2026, and do you expect that to grow? The second one you called out was the border wall, and you characterized it as tons per mile. I was trying to figure out how much border wall needs to get built, but I would like to get a sense, too, on how you see the border wall opportunity this year and also for next year. Would you expect that to grow again?
Yeah. Bill, I'll touch on, and if you can remember now, I got the second part of your question. The first part was on data centers, right? Look, if we step back, most of the forecast analysts are talking massive numbers. Multi-trillion dollars worth of spend over the next five, six, seven years. Look, Nucor's entrance into this isn't weeks or months old. This is something going back two or three years that we had been, again, readying ourselves to be where the puck's going to be at. Today, with the acquisitions of Southwest Data Products, our Nucor Warehouse Systems, our capability set, and our buildings plate structural tube group all are now combining where today Nucor can make or supply roughly 95% of all the steel required inside of and outside of a data center today.
So we're really, really capable of providing most of what the hyperscalers need today. Our relationship build with them over the last four, five, six years has been incredible. There's a high level of trust there. We earn a lot of that business.
To your question, do we anticipate that growing into 2027? Yes. Again, as we think about growth and fueling Nucor's expand beyond growth, you can expect that some of those areas of growth will be in that space, and the continued build-out of our data center offering to our customers. As we get to the border wall, I'll ask John Hollatz maybe to comment on that. It's been a lightning rod for us, and again, another end market that we've been really very well-prepared and capable to supply that need. But John, maybe giving some framing around the volumes.
Hey, Bill. On the border wall, we estimate there's about 1,400 mi of new wall to be built. That's primary and secondary wall, and there's around 1,500 tons of steel in there per mile. We have been shipping thousands of tons every week to the border. You can see it in the increased volumes in our tubular group, and that's going to continue all the way through 2027 and well into 2028. Again, we're the only company with the raw materials, the sheet supply, the tube capacity, and the logistics team to keep up with the demand for the border. For the tube group, it's not just border. On top of that, you've got a really strong demand for structural on the HSS side. We're seeing incredible performance from our conduit team. Our sprinkler pipe team is having a great year.
All of that has played a role in leading to our steel products group having the best quarter on the earnings side that we have had since the beginning of 2024. We see a really good outlook well past the end of 2026 and into 2027 for the border fence.
Appreciate the color, guys, and congrats again.
Thank you, Bill.
Your next question comes from the line of Lawson Winder with BofA Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, Leon, Steve, and Jack. Nice results. Thank you for today's update. If I could ask on your comments around merchant bar, could you just discuss a bit more as to what end markets are primarily driving that? How do the market dynamics vary regionally on merchant bar? Is there any merchant bar replacement of rebar capacity at the current moment or to any extent at all?
Say that last part of your question again, Lawson.
Just in terms of the strength in shipments from merchant bar, is that causing any displacement of rebar shipping capacity?
Okay. Look, I'm going to ask Randy Spicer to jump in on this. Just a bit of framing. Our rebar strategy and that end market has been incredibly strong for us. Our longs product groups are some of the most profitable and have been through the entire cycle. There's a lot of questions, right, of the flattening of this cost curve. But our ability to maintain margins, our ability and how our team's executed in remaining the low-cost producer, building these facilities where there's a high level of scrap inventory as well as the customers that are in proximity, gives Nucor a unique, differentiated advantage in this marketplace. Quite frankly, ADC is growing. So again, I remain very optimistic knowing that there's some competitors coming into the space, and that will continue. But, look, we've been in this business for 60 years now.
We know this market incredibly well. Our teams are executing at a high level. Randy, why don't you share a little more on what we're doing with merchant bar in particular and that growth?
Yeah. Thanks, Leon. Lawson, thank you for the question. Yeah, certainly seeing tremendous growth in both, quite frankly, merchant and rebar, as evidenced by the record shipments that we've seen that's in place. What I would tell you specifically around merchant bar is it's got exposure to some of the hottest markets that we've seen right now, specifically, as Leon had just talked about, data centers. We're in the middle of what we call the AI Super Bowl. The hyperscalers have committed an enormous amount of capital to these data center build-outs, and those structures require these larger sections that we're able to produce at Nucor. And that's showing up directly in our order book. As you can look and see, we're at record levels to be able to take advantage of both here in 2026 as well as the growth as we go forward into 2027.
With that, you're also spot on of as you see the margins increase in that space, you're also seeing some of the rebar producers are out there, right, that are capable of making flexible products, of which Nucor is one of the largest in that space, that you're actually able to move into the merchant bar space as well. With that growth, we've continued to see strong performance, and we would expect to see that as we go forward into future years.
Okay. That's very helpful. Then maybe just put a finer point on my last question. Given the way your capacity is set up between Kankakee and Missouri, is there some displacement of rebar as a result of that merchant bar capacity, meaning is the rebar market in the U.S. getting tighter as a result of what you're seeing in merchant bar?
Well, look, you're seeing ADC actually grow. If you look back a year or two, it's at roughly 9.5 million tons. We're predicting that to be upwards of 10.5 or possibly 11. So the market is growing, and so that just bodes very well, again, for our capability set and where we're going. But very specifically to your displacement question. One of the unique advantages in what Randy and his groups have done, again, this is over years, is when we put Frostproof and Sedalia and our first two micromills, we looked at the overall mix and how do we supply that. We took Darlington from rebar and some MBQ into no more rebar and all MBQ and now higher-end SBQ and wire rod. So Darlington's capabilities has expanded tremendously.
Kankakee's investment in their growth, and they've moved out of a lot of rebar into heavy MBQ and beyond. So again, the breadth of our footprint enables us to shift and modify where we meet the geographic needs and the capability sets that, again, our customers need from us in the regions where we're located. So yeah, there's been a lot of that that's happened, Lawson, over the last five, six, seven years that really catapulted with the investment of the rod mill at Darlington and now continues on.
Fantastic. As always, I appreciate the color very much.
Thank you, Lawson.
Your next question comes from the line of Tristan Gresser with BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is on your auto strategy. You had a slide in your presentation, and I think a couple of years ago, you mentioned your goal to double auto shipments. Could you provide maybe an update tonnage-wise, how much you expect to achieve this year and the next? Also, I was curious if you ever I don't think you've done this in the past, but are you entering into annual contracts with OEMs? Do you have everything you need from a raw material standpoint, or you need to make some adjustments? Lastly, from a quality perspective, it would be interesting to have your view if you're confident that you can fully replicate the products that customer usually get from integrated producer. I leave it there.
Tristan, I'm going to go ahead and jump in here. While I'm going to tell you, Noah Hanners will answer the question in a minute. I may not leave him anything to answer. Because I really appreciate the question, and I want to fully blow apart any notion that EAFs do not have the technical and quality capabilities to provide and make exposed automotive panels. It has been the last bastion of the integrated competition and the only thing they have left. Think about it. Left in America, there's not a single integrated producer making a long product in America. All EAFs do all of that today.
The last piece of that pie has been the exposed automotive panels, and I am really pleased to report on behalf of Noah and the entire sheet group that Nucor has been awarded an entire platform with General Motors for exposed automotive sheet. You are going to couple that work, that time, that effort, those resources, that process engineering and process and quality control, the PPAPs, all that work is now shifting into West Virginia. As they begin ramping up, that mill will produce 30% automotive steels capable of making the highest end. You can fully dismantle any notion that the EAF producers cannot make the most complex, high quality, and exposed pieces of that vehicle. It is over.
We are on it, we are doing it, and we are going to continue to do, and we are going to continue to take that market share away from the integrated producers, period, full stop. Noah, anything to add on that? I will leave the rest for you.
I love Leon's energy around this because so proud of what our team is accomplishing, and we can produce the full suite of what auto demands from us. I will tell you, our customers are pumped about doing more business with us. The capabilities that we are bringing to the market are perfectly timed for meeting their demands. You talk about West Virginia. The first phase of West Virginia is largely volume and proving the mill. Then we get out into 2028, and that is when we will start to put auto tons through qualifications on West Virginia. It is coming soon. The second thing is at Berkeley, we already do a lot of auto out of Berkeley. They were the substrate mill for that qualification Leon just mentioned. They just galvanized their first coil on the new gal line last week. Awesome accomplishment from that team.
On time, on budget, and we are just really well-positioned to take substantial share in the automotive market, continue to grow, exercise our capabilities there. We are at about 10% this year. We will do about a million tons at West Virginia as we are ramped up there.
Significant portion of that, probably 10%, goes into auto exposed. Awesome story about our growth in automotive. Really proud of our team.
The other thing I would add there, Noah, on automotive, I think a big testament goes to the amount of time and energy, and frankly, patience it has taken our team and our investors on helping us along this journey. As Leon mentioned, we are now on a platform. Aspirationally, we would like to get a bigger chunk of that platform, but starting out with certain parts and look forward to continuing to chip away at that.
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Dushkin with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Your next question comes from the line of Richard Garchitorena with Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
All right, team, it looks like we are having a bit of technical difficulty with these last two questions here. It appears our conference room has dropped. So in order to get these last two questions up, we will need to end this event and restart this broadcast.
Hey, Caleb, why don't we wrap here and then Jack and his IR team can reach out accordingly to Richard and the other gentleman to answer their question.
Okay. Yeah. The only thing, we will not have the closing remarks on the broadcast. We will have to add those in separately.
I do that live right now anyway, so we are ready to wrap up, Caleb.
Okay. Unfortunately, because the conference room has dropped—
Oh, no.
—they're not able to hear your closing remarks.
Sure. All right.
If you just-
How quickly can we restart it?
We can do it pretty quick here. I will end the broadcast and the event.
Okay.
You will just have to call back in, and you will have to ask your analysts to redial back.
Okay.
Okay, great. Thank you.