United States Steel Corp. announced that it will take its Gary (Ind.) Works No. 13 Blast Furnace offline in late May, rather than on August 1 as previously announced.

U. S. Steel says the earlier shutdown will help to ensure an orderly transition to a more efficient major rebuild, allowing the company to run its four other domestic steel producing plants at more efficient levels. The company further commented that the outage will help it keep flat-rolled inventories in line with second quarter customer needs, which are currently expected to run about 7% lower than the first quarter. Lower domestic flat-rolled shipments are expected to push annual shipments below the company's most recent projection of 14.5 million tons.

In an April press release, the company announced plans for a major rebuild of Gary Works No. 13 Blast Furnace, the company's largest furnace and one of four furnaces it operates at Gary Works.

The rebuild is scheduled to be completed by early November.

U. S. Steel is an integrated steelmaker with five domestic steelmaking operations and 12 blast furnaces.