ArcelorMittal to temporarily halt operations at Georgetown

Starting next week, ArcelorMittal will temporarily halt its US wire rod manufacturing operations at its Georgetown, South Carolina plant due to the economic crisis.

The shut down is expected to last less than a month, with production and maintenance employees at the plant being off work March 8 to March 30 and rolling mill employees being idled from March 16 to April 6. The total number of affected employees is of 240.

Operations at the plant were first idled back in December of 2008 for five weeks as a strategy to cope with the weak demand. Last month, the company’s president, Lakshmi Mittal, announced that the firm’s global production cut of 45 percent will be kept.
 
"This was a difficult decision to make, but the company is being forced to respond to the extraordinary economic environment we are facing," company’s spokesman Adam Warrington said, in regards to the idling of Georgetown.