AK Steel to Close Ashland Works by Year's End
By
Metal Center News Staff on
Jan 28, 2019
AK Steel will close its Ashland Works facility in Kentucky by the end of the year. The West Chester, Ohio-based steelmaker
idled most of the facility there years ago, continuing to operate a single hot-dip galvanized coating line.
The company plans to increase its operating efficiency and lower its costs by completing the shutdown of the blast furnace and steelmaking operations within the next several months, and by working with its customers to transition products coated at Ashland Works to other AK Steel operations in the United States with available capacity before the end of this year. Those moves will increase those operations’ utilization rates.
Production volumes and customer shipments are not expected to be impacted by the closure. The company will offer employees at the Ashland Works site open jobs at its other facilities.
Once fully implemented, these actions are expected to result in annual savings of over $40 million, AK Steel executives said.