In announcing its first-quarter earnings, the steelmaker said it is preparing to bring back up the No. 2 ERW mill in Lone Star, Texas. The mill has 390,000 tons of capacity, and is to resume production in May.

Trey Green, vice president and grievance chairman of United Steelworkers Local 4134 told the The Longview (Texas) News-Journal that the company has already begun recalling workers.

Elsewhere, the company said it has reconsidered the fate of the No. 6 quench and temper line at its Lorain, Ohio, plant. The company in March said it had decided to permanently close the idled line. But now it is looking at moving it to another facility “to optimize operations.”

U. S. Steel said in its earnings statement that market conditions for tube beginning to improve. It noted that the rig count is now at 857, more than double the number of rigs running at the bottom of the trough in May 2016. And, it said,  inventories of oil country tubular goods are now below the two-month threshold.