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Service center shipments of red metal products increased 10 percent in May compared with the same month in 2017, reports the Copper and Brass Servicenter Association.

Big River Steel will invest $1.2 billion to double capacity at its mill in Osceola, Ark. The company’s rolled steel production capacity will reach 3.3 million tons annually after the expansion, while allowing BRS to produce higher grades of electrical steel.

The American Institute for International Steel and two of its member companies, SIM-TEX, LP, of Waller, Texas, and Kurt Orban Partners of Burlingame, Calif., have filed suit in the United States Court of International Trade in New York challenging the constitutionality of the statute under which President Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the law relied on by President Trump to impose that tariff is unconstitutional, as well as a court order preventing further enforcement of the 25 percent tariff increase.

Steel Dynamics Inc. will invest $140 million in its Columbus Flat Roll Division, adding a third galvanizing line at the Columbus, Miss., facility.

Worthington Industries Inc., Columbus, Ohio, reported full-year net earnings of $194.8 million, a decrease of 4.9 percent compared with the prior year. Net earnings in the company’s fourth quarter totaled $30.8 million, down from $56.5 million in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year.

Of all the challenges in operating a successful steel service center these days, there may not be one any more arduous than managing freight requirements.

The U.S. structural steel market has been off to a relatively good start in 2018, with both shipments and prices seeing modest year-on-year gains. The outlook is mostly optimistic for the back half of the year, though tempered by fears produced by the ongoing Section 232 issue and its fallout.

Last December’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act allowed many within the metals distribution industry to expense and immediately write off more, including a 100 percent temporary expensing deduction for adding needed equipment, vehicles, or even a new warehouse or shop building.

The American Iron and Steel Institute, Washington, reported that the U.S. imported 2.9 million tons of steel, including 2.4 million tons of finished steel, in February, according to Census Bureau data. Overall, steel imports for the month were down 23.2 percent and finished steel imports decreased 16 percent from April.

Since February, Section 232 talk has dominated the metals industry trade world. Whether the conversation involved tariffs or quotas, exclusions or retaliatory actions, the steel and aluminum industries have been obsessed with that three-digit number.