Mittal Steel USA Inc. announced this week that it will resume operations at a steel plate rolling mill in Gary, Indiana that has been idle since 2003.
Operations at the mill are planned to resume in September, necessitating the hiring of 200 additional workers.
Mittal cites the increasing demand from the energy market for plate, used to make large-diameter pipe, as the reason for the restart of the mill.
"The reopening of the Gary mill allows Mittal to meet the increasing demands of the energy market, which is forecasted to be strong for the next several years," CEO of Mittal Plate USA, Shelby Pixley, told the press.
Mittal already produces plate at its Burns Harbor, Indiana plant, and upon its 2005 purchase of International Steel Group, which owned the Gary, Indiana rolling mill, kept the plant closed due to the weak demand for plate steel at the time. Prior to that, the mill had belonged to US Steel Corp.'s Gary Works for many years until the company traded it to International Steel Group in 2003.
Mittal also announced this week that it will upgrade its steel heat-treating lines in Burns Harbor and East Chicago, Indiana, to ramp up production of high-strength steel (HSS). The upgrade will double Mittal's annual output of HSS to approximately one million tons. The company will not hire extra workers for the upgrade.