AK Steel completes Ashland blast furnace hearth reline

West Chester, Ohio-based AK Steel, a producer of flat-rolled carbon, stainless, and electrical steel products, has completed the reline of the blast furnace hearth at its Ashland Works in Ashland, Ky. The blast furnace has returned to full production following a four-week planned outage for maintenance work.

The furnace now is operating at its full capacity, which is significantly above pre-outage levels. In addition to the hearth reline, other routine maintenance work was also completed on the blast furnace.