U.S. Steel Chairman and CEO John P. Surma yesterday declined to disclose a date for resuming work on a $1 billion project at its coke plant in Clairton, telling industry officials that preserving cash during the recession remains a priority.

Mr. Surma said the project, announced in November 2007, remained part of the steel producer's long-term plans. It would have replaced batteries of ovens that make coke, a fuel used in blast furnaces, with more efficient, environmentally friendly equipment.

Labeled the largest construction project in the region since the building of Pittsburgh International Airport in the 1990s, the project was expected to create more than 600 construction jobs.

U.S. Steel suspended work on it in April, saying then that it could not say when industry conditions would improve enough to resume work.

Mr. Surma made the remarks at a conference of coke industry officials at the Hilton Pittsburgh, Downtown.

U.S. Steel reported a first-half loss of $831 million. It is expected to report a third quarter loss when it reports third-quarter results later this month.

Domestic steelmakers are currently operating at about 60 percent of capacity, which Mr. Surma believes is in line with demand. While the need to replenish low auto industry inventories may provide a short-term boost to the industry, Mr. Surma said he did not think auto and housing would provide the stimulus for a strong recovery that they have provided following prior recessions.

"The recovery is more likely to be slow and choppy," he said.

Mr. Surma said he was worried about reports that China, which can produce more than 600 million metric tons annually, is producing more steel than its domestic customers require. The China Iron and Steel Association disclosed that September production topped a monthly record set in August.

"Chinese steel inventories are now at record high levels and steel exports recently surged some 15 percent in August, meaning that the massive amounts of steel being produced is not being consumed at the same pace," Chicago-based steel analyst Michelle Applebaum said in a report to clients this week.

Mr. Surma said that while he was concerned about current trends, he believed that China's long-term policy was to idle inefficient mills and balance supply with demand. That may take some time because of pressures to provide jobs for Chinese workers.

"I try to take their policymakers at their word," said Mr. Surma, who met with Chinese government officials recently during a meeting of the World Steel Association. "In the long run, their objective is to be more or less in balance."

He also posed an environmental question to the industry officials, asking them which has a greater carbon footprint: a can of green beans or a bag of frozen green beans. Given U.S. Steel's products include sheet steel used to make food cans, the answer wasn't hard for many in the audience to figure out.

Mr. Surma said the can of beans has a 30 percent smaller carbon footprint, excluding the carbon used to keep the bag of beans frozen once it reaches a consumer's home.

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