SunCoke Energy, Inc. (SXC) Stock Analysis

SunCoke Energy operates five owned cokemaking facilities in the U.S.—Jewell, Indiana Harbor, Haverhill, Granite City, and Middletown—with combined nameplate capacity of roughly 3.7 million tons of blast furnace coke annually, plus a licensed facility in Vitória, Brazil with 1.7 million tons of capacity operated on behalf of ArcelorMittal Brazil. Substantially all of SunCoke's coke sales are made under long-term, take-or-pay agreements with a limited number of steelmaking customers, chiefly Cleveland-Cliffs Steel and U.S. Steel, and the Domestic Coke segment represents approximately 38% of U.S. blast furnace coke market capacity. An Industrial Services segment adds material handling, mixing, and molten slag processing for steel and coal customers across the U.S., Brazil, Slovakia, and Spain.

SunCoke's take-or-pay contracts require customers to pay for contracted coke tonnage whether or not they take delivery, and most pass through coal procurement costs, operating expenses, taxes, and transportation costs, so profitability hinges more on hitting contractual coal-to-coke yields than on coal or coke prices themselves. Metallurgical coal, the principal raw material, is purchased entirely from third parties under one-year contracts—SunCoke bought 5.6 million tons in 2025—with customers holding an overriding vote in most procurement decisions through a joint coal committee structure. Non-contracted coke produced above take-or-pay volumes is sold into North American spot and export markets, exposing that portion of output to global coke pricing and competition from Chinese, Colombian, and Indonesian merchant producers. The Industrial Services segment earns fixed and volume-based fees for handling, mixing, and slag processing, with many contracts indexed to macroeconomic adjustments to offset inflation.