U.S. Steel Gary Works
Large load · ONE NORTH BROADWAY, Gary, IN
Gary Works is U.S. Steel's largest plant: an integrated blast furnace and basic oxygen steelworks with hot strip and finishing mills on about 3,000 acres of the Lake Michigan shore in Gary, Indiana. Part of its electricity comes from cogeneration units U.S. Steel runs inside the works; the rest is bought from NIPSCO, historically under a 1999 special contract and since 2019 under NIPSCO's Rate 831 tariff for the largest industrial customers, whose upper tiers are curtailable. No site-level megawatt figure has been published. Under Nippon Steel ownership the plant is mid-way through a reinvestment program, including the $350 million reline of Blast Furnace #14, back in service in September 2026.
Overview
Gary Works is served by NIPSCO but generates part of its own power: an Indiana Court of Appeals opinion records that cogeneration facilities owned and operated by U.S. Steel within the works supply some of its electricity, with NIPSCO supplying the remainder under a special contract the IURC approved in 1999. NIPSCO delivers at interconnections near the property line, and U.S. Steel distributes power across the site on its own private system.
Profile
- Rate 831 and the threat to self-supply
- In NIPSCO's 2018-2019 rate case (IURC Cause 45159), U.S. Steel said the Gary complex had the highest electric costs of all its North American flat-rolled operations and that it had begun building a substantial new cogeneration unit, permitted by IDEM in June 2018 and with the combustion turbine to be carved out to DTE Gary. It paused that project while NIPSCO proposed Rate 831, a tiered industrial tariff: Tier 1 is firm service under five-year contracts, while Tier 2 and Tier 3 are curtailable by default and tied to MISO's market. The settling parties said that without Rate 831 the majority of U.S. Steel's load could leave NIPSCO's system. U.S. Steel, ArcelorMittal, Praxair and BP together account for nearly 90% of Rate 831's firm load; the firm commitment for the whole six-customer class was 177 MW, against a 194 MW design basis.
- Reinvestment under Nippon Steel
Facility
- Activity
- Integrated blast furnace steelmaking with hot strip and finishing mills (flat-rolled steel including line pipe and automotive grades)
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Site type
- Facility
- Operating status
- Operating
Related records
Timeline
- Jan 1, 1999
- NIPSCO special contract for Gary Works power, approved by the IURC in 1999
United States Steel Corp. v. Northern Indiana Public Service Co., 951 N.E.2d 542 (Indiana Court of Appeals 2011) | HallApproved.com
- Jun 21, 2018
- IDEM issues the permit for a new cogeneration unit at Gary Works, later paused pending Rate 831
iurc.portal.in.gov
- Sep 25, 2025
- U.S. Steel board approves about $200 million hot strip mill upgrade
U. S. Steel Board Advances Capital Investments, Announces New Projects in Pennsylvania and Indiana | Nippon Steel Corporation
- Sep 3, 2026