Jindal, Moret work on iron mill

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jul 31, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Louisiana’s bid to bring a multibillion-dollar steel mill to St. James Parish remains a strong and competitive one, Gov. Bobby Jindal said Wednesday night after a daylong South Carolina trip to court Nucor Corp., the nation’s biggest steelmaker.

If successful, Louisiana would land what Jindal described as the largest single private sector investment in the state’s history, up to $4 billion in three phases.

“I’m pleased to say we made great progress in our discussion,” the governor said after landing at Baton Rouge’s Metro Airport late Wednesday. “I’m optimistic. This is a decision that will come in the next few months, certainly by the end of the year.”

His negotiations with Nucor executives Wednesday included a tour of a Charleston, S.C.-area steel mill that employs 900 people and has attracted a dozen steel-related manufacturers to that coastal city.

Nucor, which commissioned an economic impact study by Baton Rouge economist Loren Scott, projects hiring 925 people at a 4,000-acre Convent site in St. James Parish if three phases are built.

In the first phase, the company would invest $2.1 billion in a pig iron facility that manufactures raw materials for the steelmaking process. Nucor would use the facility to supply seven of its mini-steel mills in the South — including mills in Memphis, Tenn., Jackson, Miss., and the Charleston site the governor visited Wednesday. Nucor needs a new facility because foreign imports of scrap steel can’t keep up with demand.

“This is a massive facility, but they need this product right now,” said Jindal, who was joined on the trip by economic development Secretary Stephen Moret.

The new facility would give the company the ability to generate 3 million tons of pig iron annually, rising to 6 million tons a year by 2012 if it completes a second phase. Should Nucor add a third phase to manufacture finished steel, the investment in Louisiana would approach $4 billion.

At least as important as the size of the investment is the quality of the company, said Moret, whose economic development department is working on details with Nucor of a cooperative-endeavor agreement — a contract that would lay out state incentives in a single comprehensive package for the three phases of construction.

“This is one of the most impressive companies I’ve ever seen,” Moret said. “Not just the technology, but the people, the esprit de corps. This is a first-class organization.”

In addition to executives, Jindal and Moret met with plant workers, including one who moved from working as a retail clerk to earning more than $100,000 annually, Moret said. Nucor’s chief executive officer, Dan DiMicco, flew to Baton Rouge several weeks ago to meet with Jindal and invited to governor to pay a return visit — both signs that Louisiana’s offer continues to remain attractive, Jindal said.

Fourteen months ago, Louisiana lost a bid for a $3.7 billion ThyssenKrupp AG steel mill at the same St. James Parish site, where most of the acreage is owned by Entergy Corp.

Moret said Nucor represents a better fit for Louisiana than the ThyssenKrupp project. ThyssenKrupp would have required an estimated 2,700 jobs, a considerable recruiting challenge in a rural parish. Nucor’s high-end potential of 900 jobs would be met more easily by regional and state workforce officials, and the Nucor jobs would average about $75,000 a year — $20,000 more a year than the average ThyssenKrupp pay would have been.