AKS
#On the auto inventories, they are currently I think sitting ---+ light vehicles are sitting at around 66 days.
So they are up a little bit from last month or the prior quarter but not too concerned there.
The biggest demand has been on the trucks, light trucks, which has increased quite a bit for their share of the market.
I think they are looking close to 60% of the market now.
So our platforms we're on we feel pretty good about.
There are two products that are affected by it, so to remind you.
One is on a carbon side, which really is more driven by what platforms the other one.
The other is auto exhaust.
We are a major player in the auto exhaust system so whichever vehicles are selling well.
There is a couple of small vehicle platforms that are not selling as well.
That is all factored into our forecast.
But as <UNK> said, the trucks and SUVs are performing very well, and we have a good share on those vehicles.
As for Ashland, it's same thing we have talked about in the past, which is its sustained profitability that we are going to be looking for and trying to understand market conditions, pricing, hot band pricing, import levels, demand, pricing of raw materials; all of those will be factors that will be included in our analysis.
While it has improved from where it was when we made the decision to idle it, it has not changed materially enough to have made our decision to start that facility.
We will continue to evaluate that as we move forward.
I will comment on the last one first on the carbon business.
Really what is driving it there is the idling of Ashland.
We idled that at the end of last year, and we did had some inventory that carried over into the first half of the year so that inventory moving out
Mostly in the first quarter.
Right, mostly in the first quarter, but also some planned outages that we had.
We had higher planned outages here in the second quarter.
So that is what I would say on the hot rolled and cold rolled, and our focus is on the automotive side, and we have seen very strong demands on the automotive side which has tightened up what our ---+ what we have available to sell into that market.
So that has caused those products to decline.
Yes, and I would say on the stainless market, we have seen some improvement.
The nickel price has gone up a bit and improved that as well as the trade cases you described before.
So we have seen, I'd call it, some general strengthening their.
And as for ferritic, that again as nickel tins up, that drives that some.
But the majority of our ferritic business is really just based on the automotive exhaust, so it trends up with automotive build rates is the main driver there for us.
And we are seeing the decline in service center inventories with the stainless side, too.
They are down to about 2.8 months.
It is going to depend on the market conditions and how the converts are trading.
It is definitely an option as are the other things that we laid out.
It is really just going to depend on market conditions.
The secured debt capacity is very minimal at this point.
The comment I'd give on our capital structure as you have seen what we accomplished here, and <UNK> leading the efforts of our team, in the second quarter we will be very flexible.
And we will be ready to move to market when things make sense.
Our goal is to improve our balance sheet, deleverage it, and lower our interest expense.
That has been one of our key factors, and we will take a very balanced approach to it and very systematic approach to what we do as we move forward in the market.
And we have moved our debt maturities out.
We have no near term debt maturities of any size, so that is very manageable now with this refinancing we completed.
That is really our focus, and really the market conditions will drive the direction we go in the future.
Good morning.
It is a quarter-by-quarter assessment.
It is largely driven by LIFO.
Yes, it was in comparison to the just completed second quarter.
On behalf of the entire AK Steel management team, I would like to thank you for joining us on today's call.
As I indicated on our investor conference call earlier this year, our management team is ultimately measured on our performance.
We accept this, and we remain committed on improving our performance in all areas that we can control.
We are focused on the long-term, and our goal remains simple, add value to our company.
We look forward to providing you an update on our continued progress in October.
Thank you.
