Nucor Corp. selected St. James Parish, La., for the construction of a $750 million iron-making facility that will be owned and operated by Nucor Steel Louisiana LLC, a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Nucor. The 2.5 million tons-per-year plant will use direct reduction technology to convert natural gas and iron ore pellets into high-quality direct reduced iron (DRI) to be used by Nucor's steel mills, along with recycled scrap, in producing steel products such as sheet, plate and special bar quality steel.

The DRI facility is the first phase of a multi-phase plan that may include an additional DRI facility, coke plant, blast furnace, pellet plant and steel mill. According to Nucor, the DRI facility was chosen for the first phase because it offers a carbon footprint one-third of that for the coke oven/blast furnace route for the same volume of product but at less than half the cost. The first phase requires a $750 million investment and will create approximately 500 jobs during construction.