Steel industry analysts and executives knew that the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) on the sector's bottom line could vary widely. Unfortunately for steel producers, the range thus far has been from little to none.

"It's very difficult to comment on the stimulus package's impact on the steel industry because it's been fairly invisible," Michelle Applebaum, steel analyst at Chicago-based Steel Market Intelligence, said. "There's not much to talk about."

Likewise, Thomas A. Danjczek, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, Washington, said the industry conservatively estimated the impact on the steel industry at 3 million to 3.5 million tons of steel. "That was based on the original $787-billion bill, which had $154 billion worth of infrastructure spending in it," he said. "Those tons are important to us, but they've been slow in coming."

Danjczek said, however, that there may be some impact down the road. "I'm not being critical. Things have to be designed, specified, bid, awarded, steel has to be made, shipped and billed," he said, noting that the steel industry learned a similar lesson in the past: after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast four years ago, causing devastation that many said would create steel demand. "It was almost a year-plus before we started to see orders from the disaster. There's a machinery that goes into motion—the request, the design, the approval. Anyone who thought dollars would flow this quickly to the steel industry has never been in infrastructure before."

Thomas J. Gibson, president and chief executive officer of the American Iron and Steel Institute,...