Much of Steel Dynamics' production is for customers in the construction market.

In its last fiscal year, Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) – the nation’s fifth-largest producer of carbon steel products – had annual revenues of $4.4 billion and annual shipments of 3.2 million tons. The company operates five electric-furnace mini-mills and employs approximately 3,500 people. SDI explains it is among the most profitable American steel companies in terms of profit margins and operating profit per ton – and has achieved this success after only 15 years in operation.

“Steel Dynamics’ rapid growth has resulted from discovering and taking advantage of business opportunities in our areas of technical expertise, through building new production facilities and acquiring others,” the company says. “We attract creative and committed people who are given the challenge and the freedom to implement our business plans, and we reward them well for their successful efforts.”

Founded in 1993, SDI began production at its Butler, Ind., flat roll mill in 1996. This state-of-the-art mill, the company says, is a world leader in productivity and mini-mill production of flat-rolled steels. SDI’s Flat Roll Division’s finishing facilities at Butler and Jeffersonville, Ind., produce pickled, cold-rolled, galvanized and painted flat-roll steel. The company’s customers primarily come from the construction, transportation, mining and energy, industrial and agricultural markets.

The company says its acquisitions have greatly influenced its capabilities. In 2006, SDI acquired Roanoke Electric Steel Corp. of Virginia, adding merchant bar steel to its product mix. This acquisition brought the number of SDI’s electric-furnace mini-mills to five, and the company’s total steel production capacity is expected to reach 6.7 million tons per year by 2009.

In addition to merchant bars and flat-rolled steels, SDI also produces engineered bar products, wide-flange beams and rails. New Millennium Building Systems is SDI’s fabrication business that produces joists, girders and decking for non-residential construction projects.

In October 2007, SDI announced it would acquire OmniSource Corp., based in Fort Wayne, Ind., which operates scrap processing facilities in 42 locations in the eastern United States and Canada. OmniSource operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of SDI and is one of SDI’s major scrap suppliers for its Indiana mills. With the acquisition complete, the company says, SDI’s shipments of steel products and ferrous and non-ferrous resources are approaching 50-50, with steel somewhat more than half.

“In 1993, my colleagues and I set out to do something that had not been done in the United States for many years – create a new, independently financed, American steel company,” founder Keith Busse said in a statement.

“Conventional wisdom had it that American steel was doomed, that domestic steel production would continue to decline until American industry would become largely reliant on foreign steel suppliers. In the information age, some thought, there would be little room for ‘smoke-stack’ industries, much less a new steel manufacturer.

“We thought differently,” he added. “We knew that our best-in-class engineers, using new production techniques, could build mills that when operated by motivated, talented employees – could compete effectively with any foreign competitor in terms of both cost and quality. We also believed that it was clearly in our national interest to maintain a strong, vibrant American steel industry. …Our focus is on continued profitable growth to enhance shareholder value, leveraging the steel-making knowledge and skills of our talented employees to help remake an industry so vital to our American industrial economy.”