Thank you.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank you for the invitation to participate in this committee.
ADF Group was founded by my grandfather, back in 1956, as a blacksmith's shop. Today ADF is a key player in the manufacturing of structural steel components in Canada and the U.S. The company operates a state-of-the-art facility located in Terrebonne, Quebec, with more than 500 employees. We also operate a facility in Great Falls, Montana, which was built from the ground up in 2013. Today there are nearly 200 people at this facility.
Many major landscape projects across North America bear ADF's signature, such as towers one and four at the World Trade Center in New York. We have done over a dozen high-rises in New York alone. More recently we participated in the construction of the new Champlain Bridge in Montreal, and are currently working on major airport projects at LaGuardia Airport, New York, and Salt Lake City airport. As you can see from the list of projects, the core of ADF's revenues comes from the United States—approximately 80%. Needless to say these past months have been challenging for our Terrebonne-based plant. These last few weeks have just shaken up all of the American market, mainly because of the new imposed tariffs and all the uncertainties surrounding them.
The first time we heard of the tariffs was in March, when the first tweet went out from President Trump announcing the U.S. government's intention to impose 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum. At that time ADF was running the final leg of negotiations for three major U.S. contracts, for an estimated total worth several hundred million dollars. These projects would have required creating almost 100 new direct jobs in our Terrebonne facility. In the days following the announcement we lost all three of those contracts, one of which suddenly became a Buy American Act project. We quickly understood that American clients were now afraid to commit to Canadian companies.
In response to this major turn of events we needed to act quickly to adjust for our future, so between the months of March and May we set a plan in motion, including closing our Florida sales office and relocating staff personnel, adjusting our staff numbers downward, and letting go of 75 people across the entire group, 50 of whom were from our Terrebonne facility. More recently we were approved to implement a work-sharing program, with the Canadian government, for more than 160 of ADF's workers to be able to save their jobs. Their hours are currently reduced to fewer than 20 hours per workweek.
Before this trade policy officially came into force we landed two new contracts in the U.S., one of which was a major building on the east coast and called for over 14,000 tonnes of steel. In this particular case most of the steel has been purchased from steel mills in Germany, Great Britain, and smaller portions from the U.S. If the Canadian duties are implemented as a response to the new U.S. trade policy, ADF Group will have an estimated setback of at least $500,000 U.S. on the raw steel alone. Steel mills in the U.S. have hiked up their prices more than 25% since March 2018, and this new imposition from our Canadian government could be very detrimental to companies such as ADF.
Currently the majority of ADF's steel suppliers are U.S. mills. Unfortunately, Canadian mills cannot keep the pace to suffice to the demand in structural steel, oftentimes not having the specific H-beam profiles needed in most of our major projects. Needless to say, if Canadian mills were able to provide us with the right type of product and in the appropriate quantities needed, we would source all of our steel requirements from within.
In closing, I'd like to thank you all once again for taking the time to better understand the current reality of a structural steel fabricator. We hope for the best in the upcoming negotiations. These are critical times for Canada and all our trade allies. I hope to have shed a bit of light on the current situation. It will be my pleasure to answer any questions afterwards. Thank you.