U.S. Steel announces Gary Works investment

United States Steel Corporation today announced the details of its plan to rebuild its Gary Works' No. 13 blast furnace, which was constructed in 1974 and relined in 1991. Upon completion of the rebuild, this blast furnace will be capable of producing 9,200 tons of hot metal per day at 97.5 percent availability for 20 years. Currently the blast furnace produces 7,045 tons of hot metal per day. The rebuilt, upgraded No. 13 blast furnace will be renamed No. 14 in recognition of its new status.

The rebuild outage, which is scheduled to last 91 days, from Aug. 1 to Oct. 30, will require the skills of approximately 700 craftsmen.

This investment is the largest single capital investment the company has made since the early 1990s, when the green-field construction of its joint venture PRO-TEC Coating Co. began in Leipsic, Ohio.

The No. 13 blast furnace accounts for approximately 45 percent of the iron produced at Gary Works. In order to meet customer needs during the outage, the company is stockpiling inventory at Gary Works and will support customers from its other domestic facilities. The company does not anticipate any layoffs during the rebuild.