Is United States Steel Corporation an acquisition target?

Reports coming from US Steel's largest plant Gary Works cite circulating rumors that Marathon Oil will acquire US Steel (symbol X) sometime within the next few months. The deal has been in the process for a couple of years but Marathon first needed to complete the spin off of their "downstream" operations into Marathon Petroleum, which was finally completed last spring. A couple of years ago, US Steel  made several significant technological breakthroughs with regards to their fracking techniques. Marathon wants to harness this technology in order to extract natural gas from shale more efficiently. Marathon Oil owns a large portion of the Marcellus shale deposits and have been spending increasingly more money lobbying congress to loosen EPA regulations and approve the Nat Gas Act. Recently, US Steel announced they are switching their vehicles over to natural gas. John Surma, CEO of US Steel, served as the president of Marathon back when USX holding company jointly owned both Marathon and US Steel before splitting off in 2001. John Surma serves on the board of Marathon Petroleum and in April US Steel released it's annual proxy statement to shareholders asking them to vote for a proposal that would increase executive compensation in the event of a corporate takeover (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1163302/000119312511063770/ddef14a.htm). The document also reveals T.Rowe Price Associates has almost a 5% stake in US Steel, another company Surma has worked for in the past. Marathon Oil is flush with cash and US Steel's market cap is down to only $4 billion, far below its 2007 highs when it was in the mid 20's. Marathon would also benefit from such a deal through access to lower priced steel in the event a pipeline from Canada goes through since Marathon has a stake in the Canadian Tar sands. This is important because it looks like Obama's job plan will restrict imports on foreign steel. Considering John Surma is an advisor for Obama on economic matters and a steel coalition was announced last week between several major US companies, steel prices will continue to rise. While shareholders would likely benefit in the short term if the deal is approved, there are a lot of signs suggesting a corporate ponzi scheme.

http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/09/12/2011/poking-around-growth-stocks