U.S. Steel is said to be eyeing restart of the No. 4 blast furnace at its Gary Works in Indiana in December amid tightening availability in the US market, according to market sources.

The No. 4 furnace at Gary, one of the four total furnaces at the site, temporarily suspended operation in early 2020 for planned maintenance and has remained out of production as the company adjusted its production earlier in the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. US Steel restarted operations at the No. 6 and No. 8 blast furnaces at Gary in July and August, respectively.

Multiple buy-side sources reported hearing that the furnace would be restarted in the first week of December.

During the company's third quarter conference call in late October, US Steel CFO Christie Breves said the company is looking to spend about $80 million on hot-strip mill capability upgrades at the Gary Works facility in conjunction with planned outages in 2021.

The No.4 furnace at Gary has an annual capacity of 1.36 million st, according to data from the Association for Iron and Steel Technology.