Nucor said the plant already is on a maintenance outage, and the company doesn't plan to restart it until "market prices of alternative raw materials improve from current depressed levels." St. James Parish President Timmy Roussel told The Advocate newspaper the plant might resume production in mid- to late-January, assuming demand picks up. About 170 people work at the plant, but none are to be laid off, the newspaper said. In a statement, Nucor said it has a long history of keeping its “teammates” even in down markets. Nucor said on 16 December said it expects its fourth-quarter earnings to fall between 15 cents and 20 cents per diluted share, down more than two-thirds from its fourth-quarter earnings in 2014. "Our sheet and bar steel mills in particular have experienced decreased margins as selling prices have eroded more than the decline in raw material pricing. This performance is due to continued deterioration in global steel markets amplified by global excess capacity and historically high import levels," Nucor said in a statement. "Although the trade remedy process has not moved as quickly as we would like, we believe that preliminary antidumping and countervailing duties and affirmative critical circumstances findings in the steel sheet cases should have a positive impact on domestic sheet mills in the first half of 2016."