Item 1. Business

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Overview

Nucor Corporation and its affiliates (“Nucor,” the “Company” or “we”) manufacture steel and steel products. The Company also produces direct reduced iron (“DRI”) for use in the Company’s steel mills. Through The David J. Joseph Company and its affiliates (“DJJ”), the Company also processes ferrous and nonferrous metals and brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron (“HBI”) and DRI. Most of the Company’s operating facilities and customers are located in North America, but Nucor does business outside of North America as well. The Company’s operations include several international trading companies that buy and sell steel and steel products manufactured by the Company and others.

Nucor is North America’s largest recycler, using scrap steel as the primary raw material in producing steel and steel products. In 2016, we recycled approximately 17.6 million tons of scrap steel.

General Development of our Business in Recent Years

Nucor has invested significant capital in recent years to expand our product portfolio to include more value-added steel mill products, improve our cost structure, enhance our operational flexibility and provide additional channels to market for our products. Our investments total almost $6 billion over the last five years, with approximately two-thirds going to capital expenditures and one-third going to acquisitions. We believe that our focus on lowering cost will enable us to execute on our strategy of delivering profitable growth. Shifting our product mix to a greater portion of value-added products and increasing end-user market diversity will make us less susceptible to imports.

The following projects at facilities within our steel mills segment illustrate Nucor’s execution on the value-added product expansion and cost improvement aspects of our strategy. At our Hertford County, North Carolina plate mill, a series of expansions, including a heat treat line, a normalizing line and a vacuum tank degasser, were completed in 2013. Those projects have positioned the mill to increase its diversity of product offerings to be less exposed to imports and have allowed us to improve the product mix allocation between our plate mills and sheet mills to improve margins at those facilities. The final components of Nucor’s $290 million project at our South Carolina, Nebraska and Tennessee bar mills to expand our special bar quality (“SBQ”) and wire rod production capabilities by approximately one million tons were completed in 2015. These SBQ projects are an important component of our strategy because they allow us to produce engineered bar for more demanding applications that are less exposed to imports while maintaining our position as a low-cost commodity bar producer by shifting production to our other bar mills. In 2014, our Berkeley County, South Carolina mill successfully started up its nearly $100 million capital project that allows us to produce wider and thinner high-strength steel grades that can be used in a wide range of end use markets, including metal buildings, rail cars, water heaters, automotive, heavy equipment and motor lamination. Additionally, our Nucor-Yamato Steel Company (“Nucor-Yamato”) joint venture has recently completed two major capital projects to broaden its product offerings. Nucor-Yamato completed a $115 million project in late 2014 to add several additional sheet piling sections, which expanded our product offerings to include wider piling sections that are lighter and stronger, covering more area at a lower installed cost. The joint venture also recently began shipping structural steel from its $75 million quench and self-tempering line, which will make that mill the sole North American producer of certain high-strength, low-alloy structural sections. In September 2016, Nucor announced that it will add an additional cold mill at its Nucor Steel Arkansas facility for an estimated $230 million that will expand our ability to produce advanced high-strength, high-strength low-alloy and motor lamination steel products. We expect that the new cold mill complex will be operational in approximately two years.

Nucor’s steel mills segment has also grown significantly in recent years through the acquisitions of Gallatin Steel Company (“Gallatin”), a plate mill in Longview, Texas (“Longview”) and Independence Tube Corporation

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(“Independence Tube”), as well as Southland Tube (“Southland”) and Republic Conduit (“Republic”) in early 2017. Nucor acquired Gallatin in 2014 for a cash purchase price of $779 million. Located on the Ohio River in Ghent, Kentucky, Gallatin has an annual sheet steel production capacity of approximately 1,600,000 tons and provides us with expanded access to the important midwestern United States steel market. Acquired during the third quarter of 2016 for approximately $29 million, Longview is able to produce 125,000 tons annually of higher value-added carbon and alloy plate products that can range from 1 to 12 inches thick and up to 138 inches wide. Nucor completed the acquisition of Independence Tube during the fourth quarter of 2016 for approximately $430 million, and we completed the acquisition of Southland for approximately $130 million in January 2017. From their five facilities in Alabama and Illinois, Independence Tube and Southland are able to produce over 800,000 tons annually of hollow structural section (HSS) tubing used primarily in nonresidential construction markets. Nucor also completed the acquisition of Republic, a steel electrical conduit manufacturer with plants in Georgia and Kentucky, in January 2017 for approximately $335 million. These three pipe and tube businesses provide Nucor with a new line of value-added products to offer our customers, and they provide a value-added channel to market as the businesses are consumers of Nucor’s hot-rolled sheet steel.

In addition to growing through capital expansions at existing operations and acquisitions, Nucor also uses joint ventures as a platform for growth. We recently announced the formation of a joint venture with JFE Steel Corporation of Japan in which Nucor would have 50% ownership in a plant that will be built in central Mexico to supply galvanized sheet steel to the growing Mexican automotive market. The plant, which is expected to be operational in 2019, will cost approximately $270 million and will have an annual capacity of 400,000 tons. Nucor’s sheet mills will provide approximately half of the hot-rolled steel substrate that will be consumed by the joint venture.

A major emphasis of our cost improvement and operational flexibility plan relates to having more control over both the cost and reliable sourcing of our raw materials. Our 2,500,000 metric tons-per-year DRI facility in St. James Parish, Louisiana began production in December 2013. The combination of our Louisiana facility and our DRI plant in Trinidad with an annual capacity of 2,000,000 metric tons gives us the flexibility to optimize Nucor’s overall iron units mix based on current market pricing for scrap and scrap substitutes to provide us with a low cost feedstock for our steel mills.

The DRI production process requires significant volumes of natural gas. On October 1, 2016, Nucor concluded several transactions to preserve its access to a long-term supply of low cost natural gas resources while maintaining capital flexibility. Nucor purchased 49% of Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc.’s (“Encana”) leasehold interest covering approximately 54,000 acres in the South Piceance Basin, terminated two Carry & Earning (“C&E”) drilling agreements, and sold its 50% interest in Hunter Ridge Energy Services LLC (“Hunter Ridge”). In the new arrangement, the determination of whether or not to participate and invest in all future drilling capital investment by one working interest owner is independent of other working interest owners. Nucor retains its interest in all existing producing wells that it currently owns.

Segments

Nucor reports its results in three segments: steel mills, steel products and raw materials. Net sales to external customers, intercompany sales, depreciation expense, amortization expense, earnings before income taxes and noncontrolling interests, assets and capital expenditures by segment for each of the three fiscal years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2016 are set forth in Note 22 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Nucor’s 2016 Annual Report, which is incorporated by reference. The steel mills segment is Nucor’s largest segment, representing approximately 70% of the Company’s sales to external customers in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016.

Principal Products Produced

In the steel mills segment, Nucor produces and distributes sheet steel (hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized), tubular products, plate steel, structural steel (wide-flange beams, beam blanks, H-piling and sheet

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piling) and bar steel (blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing bar, merchant bar, wire rod and SBQ). Nucor manufactures steel principally from scrap steel and scrap steel substitutes using electric arc furnaces, continuous casting and automated rolling mills. Nucor’s equity method investments in Duferdofin Nucor S.r.l. and NuMit LLC are included in the steel mills segment. Also included in the steel mills segment are our distribution and international trading companies that buy and sell steel and steel products that Nucor and other steel producers have manufactured. In the steel products segment, Nucor produces steel joists and joist girders, steel deck, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel, cold finished steel, steel fasteners, metal building systems, steel grating, and wire and wire mesh. In the raw materials segment, the Company produces DRI; brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, HBI and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal. The raw materials segment also includes our natural gas drilling operations.

Markets and Marketing

The steel mills segment sells its products primarily to steel service centers, fabricators and manufacturers located throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere in the world. Nucor produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized sheet steel to customers’ specifications while maintaining inventories to fulfill anticipated orders. We estimate that approximately 60% of our sheet steel sales in 2016 were to contract customers. The balance of our sheet steel sales was made in the spot market at prevailing prices at the time of sale. The proportion of tons sold to contract customers at any given time depends on a variety of factors, including our consideration of current and future market conditions, our strategy to appropriately balance spot and contract tons in a manner to meet our customers’ requirements while considering the expected profitability, our desire to sustain a diversified customer base, and our end-use customers’ perceptions about future market conditions. These sheet sales contracts permit price adjustments to reflect changes in the current market-based indices and/or raw material costs near the time of shipment. These sheet sales contracts typically have terms ranging from six to twelve months. Steel contract sales outside of our sheet operations are not significant.

Our tubular, plate, structural, reinforcing and merchant bar steel come in standard sizes and grades, which allows us to maintain inventory levels of these products to meet our customers’ expected orders. In addition, our bar mill group manufactures hot-rolled SBQ products to exacting specifications primarily servicing the automotive, energy, agricultural, heavy equipment and transportation sectors. Almost all of our tubular, plate, structural, rebar, merchant bar and SBQ steel sales occur in the spot market at prevailing market prices.

In 2016, approximately 86% of the shipments made by our steel mills segment were to external customers. The remaining 14% of the steel mills segment’s shipments went to our tubular product maker, our piling distributor and our downstream joist, deck, rebar fabrication, fastener, metal buildings and cold finish operations. One of Nucor’s strategies for growth is expanding the channels by which our steel mills’ products can reach end-user customers. We have a goal of increasing our volume sold to internal customers to 20%.

In the steel products segment, we sell steel joists and joist girders, and steel deck to general contractors and fabricators located throughout the United States and Canada. We make these products to the customers’ specifications and do not maintain inventories of these finished steel products. The majority of these contracts are firm, fixed-price contracts that are in most cases competitively bid against other suppliers. Longer-term supply contracts may or may not permit us to adjust our prices to reflect changes in prevailing raw materials costs. We sell and install fabricated reinforcing products primarily on a construction contract bid basis. These products are used by contractors in constructing highways, bridges, reservoirs, utilities, hospitals, schools, airports, stadiums and high-rise buildings. We manufacture cold finished steel, steel fasteners, steel grating, wire and wire mesh in standard sizes and maintain inventories of these products to fulfill anticipated orders. We sell cold finished steel and steel fasteners primarily to distributors and manufacturers located throughout the United States and Canada.

We market products from the steel mills and steel products segments mainly through in-house sales forces. We also utilize our internal distribution and trading companies to market our products abroad. The markets for these products are largely tied to capital and durable goods spending and are affected by changes in general economic conditions.

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In the raw materials segment, we process ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal for use in our steel mills and for sale to various domestic and international external customers. We also broker ferrous and nonferrous metals and scrap substitutes, supply ferro-alloys, and provide transportation, material handling and other services to users of scrap metals. Our primary external customers for ferrous scrap are electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries that use ferrous scrap as a raw material in their manufacturing process. External customers purchasing nonferrous scrap metal include aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors and consumers of various nonferrous metals. We market scrap metal products and related services to our external customers through in-house sales forces. In 2016, approximately 10% of the ferrous and nonferrous metals and scrap substitutes tons we processed were sold to external customers. We used the balance in our steel mills.

Also within the raw materials segment are our DRI plants in Trinidad and Louisiana that produce iron inputs exclusively for use in the Nucor mills, as well as our natural gas production operations. All natural gas produced by the drilling operations is and will be sold to outside parties.

Competition

We compete in a variety of steel and metal markets, including markets for finished steel products, unfinished steel products and raw materials. These markets are highly competitive with many domestic and foreign firms participating, and, as a result of this highly competitive environment, we find that we primarily compete on price and service.

Our electric arc furnace steel mills face many different forms of competition, including integrated steel producers (who use iron ore converted into liquid form in a blast furnace as their basic raw material instead of scrap steel), other electric arc furnace steel mills, foreign imports and alternative materials. Large integrated steel producers have the ability to manufacture a wide variety of products but face significantly higher energy costs and are often burdened with higher capital and fixed operating costs. Electric arc furnace steel mill producers such as Nucor are sensitive to increases in scrap prices but tend to have lower capital and fixed operating costs compared with integrated steel producers.

Excess global steelmaking capacity, particularly in non-market economies, continues to be a significant challenge for Nucor and the entire U.S. steel industry. With the U.S. economy performing better than most other economies around the world and a strong U.S. dollar, the U.S. steel market is the destination of choice for global steel producers. Steel imports were down 15% in 2016 compared to 2015. Finished imports last year captured 26% market share. The effects of successful trade cases involving flat-rolled products were an important step in returning fair trade to the U.S. flat-rolled steel market, but challenges still remain in several product areas.

Competition from foreign steel and steel product producers presents unique challenges for us. Imported steel and steel products often benefit from government subsidies, either directly or indirectly through government-owned enterprises or government-owned or controlled financial institutions. China, which accounts for almost half of the steel produced annually in the world, is the prime example of how some foreign governments impact the global steel market. Nucor believes that Chinese producers, many of which are government-owned in whole or in part, benefit from their government’s manipulation of foreign currency exchange rates and from the receipt of government subsidies, which allow them to sell their products below cost. Other foreign governments utilize similar tactics to artificially lower their steel production costs. These distorting trade practices are widely recognized as being unfair and have been challenged successfully as violating world trade rules. In 2016, the U.S. steel industry received positive determinations in trade cases involving three flat-rolled products—corrosion-resistant, cold-rolled and hot-rolled steel. The U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced preliminary duty determinations in investigations addressing cut-to-length plate from twelve countries. The U.S. Department of Commerce also announced the initiation of antidumping duty investigations of imports of steel concrete reinforcing bar from Japan, Taiwan, and Turkey, and a countervailing duty (CVD) investigation of steel concrete reinforcing bar imports from Turkey. We expect the plate and rebar cases to conclude in 2017.

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Efforts by foreign companies to evade duties by routing products through third-party countries is also a challenge. Artificially-priced imports and duty evasion schemes make it very difficult for Nucor to maintain sales prices and profit levels. As a result, Nucor joined three other steelmakers in filing a petition alleging China is circumventing coated steel sheet duties by shipping product through Vietnam.

The U.S. government announced it will continue to treat China as a non-market economy, despite China’s insistence that it should be recognized as a market economy under its Protocol of Accession to the World Trade Organization (“Protocol”). China was a government-run, non-market economy in 2001 when it entered its Protocol, and China remains a government-run, non-market economy today. The main objective of the Protocol was to encourage, and in some cases to require, China to make market-based economic reforms. However, over the past 15 years, China has failed to take the required steps to establish that it is a market economy under U.S. law. Therefore, the United States had no reason to change its treatment of China as a non-market economy when one of the relevant provisions of the Protocol expired in December 2016. By treating China as a non-market economy in antidumping cases, the U.S. Department of Commerce can assume that Chinese prices and costs are distorted, and may use other methodologies to calculate antidumping duties. This often results in appropriately higher duties against Chinese products in order to offset its unfair trade practices. China has filed a challenge to the U.S. decision with the World Trade Organization.

Aggressive trade practices, left unchallenged, seriously undermine the ability of Nucor and other domestic producers to compete on price. Competition from countries with subsidized production costs has significantly contributed to the exodus of manufacturing jobs from the United States. When such an exodus occurs, the U.S. economy is weakened and Nucor’s customer base is diminished. Rigorous trade law enforcement is critical to our ability to maintain our competitive position against foreign producers that engage in unlawful trade practices. Nucor has been active in calling on policymakers to enforce global trade agreements.

We also experience competition from other materials. Depending on our customers’ end use of our products, there are sometimes other materials, such as concrete, aluminum, plastics, composites and wood that compete with our steel products. When the price of steel relative to other raw materials rises, these alternatives become more attractive to our customers.

Competition in our scrap and raw materials business is also vigorous. The scrap metals market consists of many firms and is highly fragmented. Firms typically compete on price and geographic proximity to the sources of scrap metal.

Backlog

In the steel mills segment, Nucor’s backlog of orders was approximately $1.52 billion and $1.17 billion at December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. Order backlog for the steel mills segment includes only orders from external customers and excludes orders from our downstream businesses. Nucor’s backlog of orders in the steel products segment was approximately $1.40 billion and $1.35 billion at December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. The majority of these orders will be filled within one year. Order backlog within our raw materials segment is not significant because the majority of the raw materials that segment produces are used internally.

Sources and Availability of Raw Materials

For the past decade, Nucor has focused on securing access to low-cost raw material inputs as they are the Company’s largest expense. Nucor’s broad, balanced supply chain is an important strength which allows us to reduce the cost of our steelmaking operations, create a shorter supply chain and have greater optionality over our metallics inputs. Our investment in DRI production facilities and scrap yards, as well as our access to international raw materials markets, provides Nucor with significant flexibility in optimizing our raw materials costs. Additionally, having a significant portion of our raw materials supply under our control minimizes risk associated with the global sourcing of raw materials, particularly since a good deal of scrap substitutes comes

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from regions of the world that have historically experienced greater political turmoil. Continued successful implementation of our raw material strategy, including key investments in DRI production, coupled with the scrap brokerage and processing services performed by our team at DJJ, give us greater control over our metallic inputs and thus help us mitigate the risk of significant price fluctuations in input costs.

The primary raw materials for our steel mills segment are ferrous scrap and scrap substitutes such as pig iron, DRI and HBI. On average, it takes approximately 1.1 tons of scrap and scrap substitutes to produce a ton of steel. DJJ operates six regional scrap companies within the United States that have the combined annual scrap processing capability of over five million tons. DJJ acquires ferrous scrap from numerous sources including manufacturers of products made from steel, industrial plants, scrap dealers, peddlers, auto wreckers and demolition firms. We purchase pig iron as needed from a variety of sources and operate DRI plants in Trinidad and Louisiana with respective capacities of 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 metric tons annually. The primary raw material for our DRI facilities is iron ore, which we purchase from various international suppliers.

In October 2016, Nucor concluded several transactions to improve its access to a long-term supply of natural gas. Nucor purchased 49% of Encana’s leasehold interest covering approximately 54,000 acres in the South Piceance Basin. Further, Nucor and Encana also terminated the two C&E drilling agreements entered into in 2010 and 2012, and Nucor sold its 50% equity interest in Hunter Ridge to Encana. Hunter Ridge is a gas gathering and water service provider formed by Nucor and Encana in 2012 to support the joint well development in the North Piceance Basin. In the new arrangement, the determination of whether or not to participate and invest in all future drilling capital investment by one working interest owner is independent of the other working interest owners. As such, Nucor has full discretion on its participation in all future drilling capital investments. By canceling the C&E drilling agreements, Nucor has eliminated all future carry capital and all contingent liabilities associated with those contracts, which should result in lower unit cost for any future drilling. Nucor retains all existing producing wells it currently owns. To support Nucor’s operating wells and potential future well developments on the 54,000 acres, Nucor has entered into long-term agreements directly with existing third party gathering and processing service providers.

The primary raw material for our steel products segment is steel produced by Nucor’s steel mills.

DJJ generally purchases ferrous and nonferrous scrap for sale to external customers from the same variety of sources it purchases ferrous scrap for use as a raw material in Nucor’s steel mills. DJJ does not purchase a significant amount of scrap metal from a single source or from a limited number of major sources. The availability and price of ferrous scrap and other metallic inputs such as iron ore are affected by changes in the global supply and demand for steel and steel products.

Energy Consumption and Costs

Our steel mills are large consumers of electricity and natural gas. Our DRI facilities in Trinidad and Louisiana are also large consumers of natural gas. Consequently, we use a variety of strategies to manage our exposure to price risk of natural gas, including cash flow hedges and our natural gas drilling operations.

Historically, manufacturers in the United States have benefited from relatively stable and competitive energy costs that have allowed them to compete on an equal footing in the increasingly global marketplace. The availability and prices of electricity and natural gas are influenced today, however, by many factors including changes in supply and demand, advances in drilling technology and, increasingly, changes in public policy relating to energy production and use. Because energy is such a significant cost for Nucor, we strive continually to make our operations in all three of our business segments more energy efficient. We also closely monitor developments in public policy relating to energy production and consumption. When appropriate, we work to shape those developments in ways that we believe will allow us to continue to be a competitive producer of steel and steel products in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

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Environmental Laws and Regulations

Our business operations are subject to numerous federal, state and local laws and regulations intended to protect the environment. The principal federal environmental laws include the Clean Air Act that regulates air emissions; the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) that regulates water discharges; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) that addresses solid and hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal; and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) that governs releases of, and remediation of, sites contaminated by hazardous substances. Our operations are also subject to state laws and regulations that are patterned on these and other federal laws.

We believe that we are in substantial compliance with the provisions of all federal and state environmental laws and regulations applicable to our business operations.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”) issued a final rule regarding the Clean Power Plan (“CPP”). While the CPP is directed at electric generating units, as opposed to steelmaking operations, Nucor expects indirect impact through increased electric costs. There are ongoing legal challenges to the CPP which will likely delay any potential adverse impacts to Nucor. Additionally, the current administration has given strong signals that their intention is to repeal this regulation. If this regulation moves forward, we expect the impacts will be spread over a significant timeframe, mitigating these impacts on Nucor’s operations.

Nucor uses electric arc furnaces (“EAF”) to recycle scrap metal into new steel products. These EAFs use electricity as their primary source of energy. As the new administration revisits any number of recently implemented environmental regulations, such as greenhouse gas (“GHG”) regulations, air toxics rules, and emissions standards imposed on coal-fired electric utilities, it is reasonable to assume that any cost implications would be delayed until those reviews are complete.

The CWA regulates water discharges and withdrawals. Nucor maintains discharge and withdrawal permits as appropriate at its facilities under the national pollutant discharge elimination system program of the CWA and conducts its operations in compliance with those permits. Nucor also maintains permits from local governments for the discharge of water into publicly owned treatment works where available.

RCRA establishes standards for the management of solid and hazardous wastes. RCRA also addresses the environmental impact of contamination from waste disposal activities and from recycling of and storage of most wastes. While Nucor believes it is in substantial compliance with these regulations, past waste disposal activities that were legal when conducted but now may pose a contamination threat are periodically discovered. These activities and off-site properties that USEPA has determined are contaminated, for which Nucor may be potentially responsible at some level, are quickly evaluated and corrected. While Nucor has conducted and is in the final stages of completing some cleanups under RCRA, these liabilities either are identified already and being resolved or have been fully resolved.

Because Nucor long ago implemented environmental practices that have resulted in the responsible disposal of waste materials, Nucor is also not presently considered a major contributor to any major cleanups under CERCLA for which Nucor has been named a potentially responsible party. Nucor continually evaluates these types of potential liabilities and, if appropriate, maintains reserves sufficient to remediate the identified liabilities. Under RCRA, private citizens may also bring an action against the operator of a regulated facility for potential damages and payment of cleanup costs. Nucor is confident that its system of internal evaluation and due diligence has sufficiently identified these types of potential liabilities so that compliance with these regulations will not have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, cash flows or financial condition beyond that already reflected in the reserves established for them.

The primary raw material of Nucor’s steelmaking operations is scrap metal. The process of recycling scrap metal brings with it many contaminants such as paint, zinc, chrome and other metals that produce air emissions

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which are captured in specialized emission control equipment. This filtrant (EAF dust) is classified as a listed hazardous waste under the RCRA. Because these contaminants contain valuable metals, this filtrant is recycled to recover those metals. Nucor sends all but a small fraction of the EAF dust it produces to recycling facilities that recover the zinc, lead, chrome and other valuable metals from this dust. By recycling this material, Nucor is not only acting in a sustainable, responsible manner but is also substantially limiting its potential for future liability under both CERCLA and RCRA.

Nucor operates an aggressive and sustainable environmental program that incorporates the concept of individual employee as well as management responsibility for environmental performance. All of Nucor’s steelmaking operations are ISO 14001 certified. Achieving ISO 14001 certification means that each of Nucor’s steel mills has put an environmental management system in place with measurable targets and objectives, such as reducing the use of oil and grease and minimizing electricity use, and has implemented site-wide recycling programs. Many of our facilities have incorporated energy efficiency targets to reduce both cost and environmental impacts into their environmental management systems. These environmental management systems help facilitate compliance with our environmental commitment, which is every Nucor teammate’s responsibility. Nucor’s environmental program maintains a high level of ongoing training, commitment, outreach and visibility.

Capital expenditures at our facilities that are associated with environmental regulation compliance for 2017 and 2018 are estimated to be less than $100 million per year.

Employees

Nucor has a simple, streamlined organizational structure to allow our employees to make quick decisions and to innovate. Our organization is highly decentralized, with most day-to-day operating decisions made by our division general managers and their staff. We have slightly more than 100 employees in our executive office. The vast majority of Nucor’s approximately 23,900 employees as of December 31, 2016 are not represented by labor unions.

Available Information

Nucor’s annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to these reports, are available on our website at www.nucor.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after Nucor files these reports electronically with, or furnishes them to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Except as otherwise stated in these reports, the information contained on our website or available by hyperlink from our website is not incorporated into this report or other documents we file with, or furnish to, the SEC.