Air Liquide to supply Nucor plant
Air Liquide Large Industries U.S. LP will supply oxygen to Nucor Steel’s new Convent plant under an agreement announced Tuesday.
The value of the contract was not disclosed.
Air Liquide’s new Air Separation Unit in Geismar will provide Nucor’s reduced iron plant with about 794 tons of oxygen per day, Air Liquide spokesman George Smalley said. Smalley said he could not talk about the air separator’s capacity, but supplying Nucor would take a large portion of the Air Liquide facility’s capacity.
The Nucor plant will tie into Air Liquide’s Mississippi River Pipeline System, Smalley said.
“There’s not a direct pipeline from the Geismar facility to Nucor’s facility. What happens is that oxygen gets put into our pipeline, and we have 13 plants in Louisiana that feed into the Mississippi River Pipeline System,” Smalley said. “And that’s where customers like Nucor would get their supply.”
Nucor broke ground on the Convent facility in March. The company said the majority of the new plant’s equipment will arrive in 2012, with construction and the beginning of the plant startup to begin in mid-2013.
Nucor plans to build a $3.4 billion steel mill south of the Sunshine Bridge, with the work to be done in five phases over a number of years. If all five phases are built, the plant could employ 1,250 people.
Louisiana convinced Nucor to build the new mill with an incentive package that included $600 million in Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds; $160 million in state performance-based financial assistance; and $30 million in state construction money.
In addition to the Convent plant deal, Air Liquide announced it had extended its contracts to supply oxygen, nitrogen and argon to Nucor’s plants in Berkely County, S.C., and Blytheville, Ark.
Using oxygen instead of ambient air improves the efficiency of the steel-making process, according to Air Liquide. Inert gases like argon and nitrogen are also critical to a number of steel manufacturing processes.
Air Liquide said it supplies gas to seven of Nucor’s U.S. plants and one in Trinidad.