The steelmaker said any such decision was likely to lead to a significant number of redundancies.
Posco, from South Korea, the world's fourth-largest steelmaker, is in talks about a separate plant.
His competitor, a Brazilian steelmaker seven times Esmark's size, had the support of Wheeling-Pittsburgh.
The steelmaker Corus has also announced it intends extending the Christmas shutdown at Llanwern near Newport.
The Mittal family said they were "extremely shocked" by Mr Montebourg's attacks on the steelmaker.
In 1986, Mer took over Usinor, the giant moneylosing steelmaker owned by the government.
The ASW closure came after steelmaker Corus announced 3, 000 job losses in Wales in 2001.
Nucor Corporation, a steelmaker, gives its workers bonuses if they can produce steel more efficiently.
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OMV, an oil and gas company, Voest, a steelmaker, and Lenzing, a maker of cellulose fibre.
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The Luxembourg government, the steelmaker's largest shareholder with a 5.6% stake, rejected the bid Tuesday.
Mittal overtook Arcelor as the world's largest steelmaker after buying America's International Steel Group in 2005.
Former oil baron has stake in steelmaker Evraz Group, mining outfit Highland Gold, plus tons of cash.
France's minister for industrial recovery, Arnaud Montebourg, accused the steelmaker on Monday of "lying" and "disrespecting" the country.
Chief executive and controlling shareholder of steelmaker Severstal, which has seen its stock plummet 84% since last February.
The company hopes that drastic cost cutting and a restructuring will drag the steelmaker back into the black.
Others are private firms, like Gerdau, a steelmaker, or JBS, soon to be the world's biggest meat producer.
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The minimill, which has grown into the second-biggest U.S. steelmaker, fired its highly respected chief executive, John Correnti, 52.
Now, however, a row has blown up at the biggest and best-known of these firms Baosteel, the mainland's leading steelmaker.
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Today my company has a multiplier more like a steelmaker such as Arcelor Mittal: a number too painful to print here.
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But Severstal, Russia's number three, last year bought Rouge, an American steelmaker, and is among the suitors for Canada's bankrupt Stelco.
That was the high point of his defence of Europe's biggest steelmaker.
If the proposed merger between Arcelor and Severstal goes ahead it would create the world's biggest steelmaker with a turnover of 46bn euros.
Fifteen years later, he had turned it into Arcelor, which has become the world's largest steelmaker through a series of acquisitions and privatizations.
Fourteen people have been arrested and bailed on suspicion of fraud in relation to sales of cars bought by employees of the steelmaker Tata.
The trial's opening coincided with the formal indictment of the chairman of the world's largest steelmaker, POSCO, for his alleged involvement in the scandal.
His competitor, a Brazilian steelmaker seven times Esmark's size, had the support of Wheeling-Pittsburgh (nasdaq: WPSC - news - people ).
Arcelor Mittal is no longer welcome in France, its minister for industrial recovery, has said, accusing the steelmaker of "lying" and "disrespecting" the country.
At the end of January the French government was surprised by Mittal Steel's hostile bid for Arcelor, a steelmaker with 30, 000 employees in France.
On the contrary, it has reacted with deep hostility to a proposed takeover of Arcelor, a steelmaker that is a big employer in France.
Nucor is the most efficient steelmaker in the world, she says.
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