U.S. Steel plans to start construction on a $300 million blast furnace reline at Gary Works next year.
New owner Nippon Steel promised the major capital project if its $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel went through.
U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt said at the Steel Market Update Steel Summit in Atlanta last week that U.S. Steel would move forward with the reline next year of the largest blast furnace at the largest steel mill in North America.
A reline involves replacing the refractory brick inside a blast furnace, which burns iron ore, coke and limestone in volcanic temperatures to make iron, the precursor to the steel that goes into cars, appliances and many other end uses. Blast furnaces must be relined, or almost entirely rebuilt from the inside, every few decades.
Randy Palmateer, business manager of the Northwestern Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, said the project would mean a significant amount of construction jobs for skilled tradespeople
"It's a big project," he said. "It's a lot of jobs."
Nippon Steel has been in talks with the city about the project, Mayor Eddie Melton said.
"They're getting ready to reline the blast furnace — blast furnace No. 14, which is the largest steel producing blast furnace in US Steel's portfolio," Melton said during his recent appearance on the nationally syndicated 'Breakfast Club' show. "When you think about relining a blast furnace and increasing steel production, that's more jobs. It's protecting national security and everything like that."
The investment will help increase the assessed valuation of the steel mill and bring in more property tax revenue, Melton said.
"Those investments are going to soon trickle down into the specific communities so we can invest in our infrastructure: paving streets, streetlights, all those type of things that need to be fixed right now that historically Gary has had issues doing because we didn't have the revenue," he said on "The Breakfast Club." "But now we're working with our corporate partners to make that happen."
Environmental groups have been lobbying against the reline, pushing for U.S. Steel and its parent company Nippon Steel to invest in newer, greener technologies rather than continue to burn coke, a purified form of coal that scientists say is a major contributor to climate change. Gary Advocates for Responsible Development for instance has called for newer ironmaking technologies that do not rely on fossil fuels and release fewer emissions into the atmosphere.
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