SCBIZ Daily Staff

GEORGETOWN -- ArcelorMittal, a global steel manufacturer that owns a facility in Georgetown, has announced it will close the plant from Dec. 5 through Jan. 12.

The move leaves about 280 employees at the Georgetown plant temporarily out of work.

Company officials said the temporary closure is part of its effort to scale back global production by about 35%, a policy announced after the company’s third-quarter earnings report in early November. The effort includes a 30% cut in the company’s long carbon unit.

“The current period of destocking requires that we make appropriate production cuts to seek to rebalance supply and demand, and we are also accelerating efforts to pay down debt,” Chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal said in the company’s Nov. 5 earnings statement.

ArcelorMittal’s Georgetown plant, formerly Georgetown Steel Co., produces wire rod.

Spokesman Adam Warrington said in an e-mail statement Tuesday that the company is responding to the “extraordinary economic environment” it is facing.

“We will be carefully monitoring the situation and we look forward to many of our employees returning to work as soon as it is warranted by market conditions,” the statement said.