SunCoke Energy 2024 Sustainability Report
We are pleased to present SunCoke’s 2024 Sustainability Report. 2024 was a year of strong safety, environmental, and financial performance at SunCoke. Our achievements and improvements would not have been possible without the sustained efforts of SunCoke’s employees, whose everyday embodiment of SunCoke values is critical to our success. We will continue to work collaboratively to advance initiatives across our Sustainability Foundations:
- Occupational Health and Safety;
- Advanced Technology; and
- Innovation and Evolution of Products & Services.
These initiatives create long term value for our shareholders, customers, and employees.
In 2024, we achieved our best-ever safety record, which reflects our ongoing commitment to prioritizing a safe, productive work environment. We recorded a Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) of 0.50, outperforming our peers in the "All Other Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing" and "Iron and Steel Mills" sectors.1
We set high safety standards for employees and contractors. In 2024, contractors working at our sites were awarded two Zero Injury Safety Incidents Awards (ZISA) from the National Maintenance Agreements Policy Committee for work completed at our Indiana Harbor and Middletown plants during 2024. Through the clear communication of safety expectations and best practices, we empower employees at all levels of our business to act safely from the moment they arrive at work to the moment they leave.
SunCoke's operational and financial success can also be attributed to our advanced technology and emphasis on continuous improvement, which make us the most environmentally friendly coke producer, and demonstrate our commitment to environmental excellence. We continue to drive environmental performance through continuous improvement and investing in our assets.
SunCoke’s commitment to the long-term maintenance and improvement of our assets helps to drive our reputation as a consistent, high-quality coke producer. This commitment not only ensures long-term reliability, but also supports growth opportunities for our logistics and coke businesses. Our commitment is demonstrated by our significant investment of approximately $70-80 million in our assets year-over-year.
In 2024, a major reliability-focused investment supported the completion of the Middletown Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) upgrade program that began in 2019. Our HRSG technology has been a hallmark of our advanced technology and, by upgrading the HRSGs at the Middletown plant, we were able to improve the long-term reliability of these critical assets, while also improving environmental performance.
In our logistics business, capital allocation has been structured to support business growth. SunCoke’s three logistics terminals, located on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Kanawha rivers, provide high throughput, offloading, onloading, and storage. Demand for our Kanawha River Terminal (KRT) services increased in 2024, resulting in a capital project to support a new barge-to-rail contract. Mobilizing KRT to support increased coal exports will drive increased EBITDA through higher transloading volumes.
In addition to investing in growth opportunities, in 2024 we also addressed black lung obligations by applying for and receiving a certificate of exemption that permanently transfers responsibility for payment of black lung benefits from SunCoke to the Department of Labor’s Division of Coal Mine Workers Compensation.
We strive to continuously improve upon our own operations, but also recognize opportunities to support our customers in working towards their sustainability and operational objectives. Our high-quality, high-efficiency coke allows customers to reduce coke consumption, which reduces emissions. This year, much of our product innovation was concentrated on foundry coke, where we were granted three new patents relating to production, properties, and use. The patents have further solidified our competitive advantage in the foundry coke space by protecting our best-in-class technology across the foundry coke lifecycle.
In the steel value chain, SunCoke’s blast furnace coke is a necessary input in the production of high-strength steel, which is a critical material for many industries including automotive, rail, construction, and energy. Similarly, our foundry coke products are an essential input to foundries that engage in metalcasting and manufacture products critical to consumers and the renewable energy sector, ranging from X-ray machines to wind turbines.
SunCoke produces the coke critical for the steel and metalcasting industries, and does so reliably. This is becoming increasingly important as other coke producers shut down plants and supply chains are compromised, all while the U.S. aims to increase its domestic production. We are proud of our safety, community, and environmental performance and our ability to support our partners in achieving their own supply performance goals.
We will position ourselves to continue to support an evolving market by leveraging our core competencies to diversify our customers and product offerings. This includes our continued expansion in the foundry coke market, and our business development efforts in the logistics segment for organic and inorganic growth.
As we look to 2025, we will continue to work towards excellence in day-to-day operations while pursuing further opportunities. Thank you for your interest and ongoing support of this mission.
Katherine Gates
President and CEO
1 In 2023, the year for which the most recent data is available, the TRIR was 2.6 for businesses in the “All Other Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing” sector and 2.1 for businesses in the “Iron and Steel Mills” sector. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities,” 2024, TABLE 1. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2023.
