Steel Mills

Nucor Aims to Restart Louisiana DRI Plant After Idling Ahead of Ida

August 31, 2021

Nucor plans to restart its direct-reduced iron (DRI) plant in Louisiana after pre-emptively idling the facility ahead of Hurricane Ida.

“Our Nucor teammates and their families are safe, and the DRI plant did not sustain any major damage from the storm,” a company spokeswoman said.

Nucor “We expect to resume operations in the coming days when we determine it is safe to do so given the storm’s impact to the region as a whole,” she added.

Nucor operates DRI plants in Convent, La. – roughly 60 miles from New Orleans – and in Trinidad.

The Convent facility, officially known as Nucor Steel Louisiana LLC, has capacity of 2.5 million tons per year, according to the 2021 Association for Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) Directory of Iron and Steel Plants.

DRI can be used as an alternative to prime scrap.

Ida made landfall in Louisiana over the weekend. Its broader impact on steel was not immediately clear on Monday afternoon.

But industry sources reported widespread logistical snarls – port closures and difficulty moving trucks and barges – as well as power outages. And some noted that there were increasing concerns about potential shortages of industrial gasses and natural gas given that the region is also a petrochemical and refining hub.

And in some cases companies have not been able to to access their facilities to determine the extent of the damage. The storm is also expect to hit operations outside of the Gulf Coast as it moves north, they said.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Michael Cowden

Michael Cowden is managing editor for Steel Market Update. Cowden has covered the steel industry since 2007. He specializes in flat-rolled steel but has also reported on steel long products, steel pipe and tube, and aluminum. Before joining SMU, Cowden held reporting jobs at Fastmarkets AMM in Chicago, the Associated Press in Pittsburgh, and the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. He has also worked as a copy editor and in marketing at the University of Chicago Press. Cowden has a BA in English from the University of Chicago and an MSJ journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Contact him at michael@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7872.