| AK Shutting Down Middletown Works Blast Furnace |
| Thursday, March 19, 2009 8:31:17 AM - Middletown Ohio |
 By: Tara Kunkle
On Friday AK Steel Corp. in Middletown will be shutting down its Middletown Works blast furnace for extensive maintenance. AK spokesman Alan McCoy told Jessica Heffner of the Middletown Journal that it is expected to take 45 days as AK employees and contractors will be replacing the hearth, the bottom inside section of the furnace where molten iron collects. This will result in an unspecified number of workers being laid off as a result of the shutdown.
McCoy also told Heffner that at this point they cannot say definitively how many employees will be laid off. It will change week to week and will be determined by other business conditions. The president of the International Association of machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 1943 told Heffner “the union has been working with the company to minimize the impact on hourly employees. More than 100 workers are currently on layoff in Middletown.”
With the company getting ready for Middletown shutdown the company’s Ashland blast furnace was brought back online. They have had it on hot idle status since November due to a decrease in demand for AK products. There have been around 600 workers recalled to the Ashland plant. Not all of them were associated with the blast furnace. Everything but the coke plant was down. The last blast furnace hearth that was installed was in 1984 and has produced more than 50 million tons of iron since then they are hoping the new one will do the same thing or even more.
Click here to discuss the Middletown works blast furnace.
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