U.S. Steel has put another 579 workers on notice that they could be laid off from the company's Lone Star Tubular Operations as the steelmaker's business slows along with the oil and gas industry.

The Pittsburgh-based company on Friday notified employees at Lone Star and other plants the cuts were possible. If all occur, it would put the job toll this year at Lone Star at more than 1,000.

Lone Star Mayor Karl Stoermer said the cuts already are being felt across the region.

"Layoffs at U.S. Steel ... have a substantial impact on the city of Lone Star," he said. "There have always been workers from all over the area. There might be more people in Pittsburg than in Lone Star working out at the plant, or Avinger or Daingerfield or Hughes Springs."

But, he added, the impact is broader than just the jobs cut by U.S. Steel.

"The rest of story is not the people at the plant who are laid off," he said. "The rest of the story is all the supporting industries around — people who coat the pipe, who put threads on the pipe, put couplers on the pipe, truck drivers — all those people are not part of U.S. Steel."

As a result, Stoermer said, those industries also are seeing closures and layoffs.

According to a letter sent last week to employees, layoffs are expected to begin June 17 and continue through July 24.

"This action is a result of a decline in tubular market conditions, which is impacting the plant's products," U.S. Steel said in the letter.

In addition to declines in business from its oil and gas customers, U.S. Steel has been been adjusting to increasing foreign competition and rising imports that have depressed prices.

Company spokeswoman Sarah Cassella said notices were issued last week for a total of 1,404 jobs. In addition to the 579 at Lone Star, 404 notices were issued to managers at tubular operations in Houston and elsewhere; 166 to employees at Offshore Operations in Houston; and 255 at Wheeling Machine Products in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

In January, U.S. Steel announced plans to lay off more than 300 people by the end of February from the Lone Star plant north of Longview. Cassella said Monday that as of last week, 432 jobs had been cut from the plant that began the year with about 1,110 employees.

"We are continuing to adjust production," she said, adding that despite the deepening cuts, the moves don't represent "a permanent idling or closure."

Since the beginning of the year, U.S. Steel has idled several tubular plants and adjusted operations at Lone Star and one other plant as oilfield demand for the tubing it produces has fallen. In mid-February, it said it also was laying off 63 people from tubular operations in Hughes Springs.

A precise tally of area oilfield job losses is not available, but the known losses were nearing 1,000 before the latest news from U.S. Steel.

In February, Trican Well Service informed the Texas Workforce Commission it planned to lay off 125 people from its Longview operations by the end of March.

That same month, oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. said it was ceasing its Kilgore operations, putting 58 people out of work. The Houston company's notification to the city indicated the layoffs would be permanent.

And Amega West Services said it would cease operations in Tyler, shedding 51 jobs by April 21.

On March 31, TForce Energy Services in Kilgore, closed its yard leaving 36 employees looking for work.

Industrial conglomerate GE, meanwhile, notified regulators in January it would lay off 330 employees from the East Texas manufacturing operations it acquired from pumping unit maker Lufkin Industries. Earlier this month, it announced another 149 cuts from operations in Lufkin.

The cuts come as hundreds of U.S. drilling rigs have gone idle amid billions in oil company spending cuts, a reaction to crude oil prices that have been cut in half since June.

Since that month last year, U.S. Steel has informed more than 7,800 U.S. employees of potential job cuts, according to a tally by the Pittsburgh Business Times. As of Dec. 31, U. S. Steel had about 23,000 employees in North America and about 12,500 in Europe, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.