Published by:Christian Willbern<>
28 May 2025 @ 19:46 UTC

Coke producer SunCoke agreed to buy steel mill servicer Phoenix Global, expanding and diversifying their footprint in the steelmaking industry, the company said in a press release on Wednesday May 28.

SunCoke primarily supplies coke to integrated steel producers in North America. With the addition of Phoenix, we will also become a service provider to EAF [electric-arc furnace] operators, which include carbon steel and stainless steel mills, Katherine Gates, SunCoke’s chief executive officer and president, said on a conference call held on Wednesday.
Phoenix will add four US integrated mills, three international integrated mills, eight US EAFs and one international EAF to SunCoke’s customer base, increasing SunCoke’s Brazilian operations and expanding into European markets, Gates said during the call.
The steel mill servicer handles slag clean-up from furnace areas, a mission-critical service, as mill operations will be disrupted if slag is not removed from the furnace area, SunCoke said in its conference call presentation on Wednesday.
Phoenix also processes slag for metal recovery, and it prepares and handles scrap inventory for its customers.
Gates said that SunCoke plans to grow the business through opportunities both in the renewals of the contracts Phoenix has today, as well as entering into new contracts where other competitors are currently serving other sites.
The CEO said that this is in addition to any new sites that are being opened in the United States. I think it’s really important to think about the opportunity that we have here with the EAFs. So, Phoenix is currently serving eight EAF customers in the US, and there are over 150 EAFs that are being operated [in the US].
SunCoke anticipates that the acquired business will add roughly $61 million to its annual adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
The $325 million deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025, according to the company’s press release.
Gates said the acquisition will not affect SunCoke’s granulated pig iron (GPI) project with US Steel, which was paused due to government delays from the Nippon Steel-US Steel acquisition.
On Friday May 23, the Donald Trump administration greenlit the $14 billion acquisition.
We’re monitoring the news just like you are in terms of the sort of the daily announcements, but this acquisition does not impact our plans for the GPI [project], Gates said.