Nucor Louisiana DRI Production Down for Another 3-4 Weeks

Nucor has experienced two outages at its direct-reduced iron plant in Louisiana, one planned, the other unplanned. On Monday, July 23, shortly after restarting production following a planned 30-day maintenance shutdown, the plant suffered a power outage that shut down DRI production once again. The steelmaker hopes to resume production in three to four weeks.

A Nucor spokesperson reported that the ”tube section of the process heater ruptured, thereby requiring a controlled shutdown of DRI production.” The power outage was the result of operator error. The incident did not cause any injuries or environmental impact. Nucor expects no disruption to production at any of its steel mills.