Published: May 13, 2009 11:37 pm      

AK Steel to idle Ashland Works again

ASHLAND — AK Steel is shutting down its Ashland Works again.

The company announced Wednesday it will “likely” idle most operations at the plant beginning in late July or early August.

The shutdown will affect roughly 750 hourly and salaried workers and is a direct result of recent announcements by struggling U.S. automakers General Motors and Chrysler of significant production cutbacks, as well the continuing global recession, the company said.

“Unfortunately, at these very depressed business levels, we do not have sufficient carbon steel orders to operate both of our blast furnace plants,” said James L. Wainscott, chairman, president and chief executive officer of AK Steel. “The Ashland Works is not capable of producing the full range of slab widths required by our customers and lacks any rolling facilities. Thus, the Middletown (Ohio) Works is the only efficient choice for this very low level of orders.”

AK Steel idled the Ashland Works in November but restarted operations there several weeks later because of a blast furnace outage at Middletown.

The plant has not had rolling capability since the closure of the hot strip mill in the early 1990s. Slabs produced there are transported to the Middletown Works to be converted into hot-rolled steel coils, which are used primarily in the automotive and appliance industries.

Ashland Works likely will remain on idle status through the remainder of 2009, the company said. Its Ashland coke plant, which employs about 290, will remain in operation, albeit at a reduced capacity.

“It is our hope that a steady global economic recovery will translate as quickly as possible to the resumption of higher levels of production and elimination of the uncertainty that burdens our employees,” Wainscott said.

Doug Campbell, the new president of United Steelworkers of America 1865, which represents hourly employees at the mill, said Wednesday’s news, while certainly grim, was hardly surprising, given AK Steel’s fortunes are heavily tied to those of the automotive industry, which continues in a downward spiral. Chrysler has already filed for bankruptcy and GM could soon follow suit.

“All a person needs to do is look at the economy and see what’s going on,” Campbell said. “Most of our business is automotive and automobiles aren’t moving right now.”

The last time AK Steel shut down the Ashland Works, it was a “hot” idle, meaning the blast furnace was extinguished but the stoves that feed it were kept burning and a handful of workers — a “fire watch” crew — was kept on to tend them. Campbell said he has not been told if that would be the case this time.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.