US steelmaker AK Steel has reported its financial results for 2018. Its net income was $186 million, versus $103.5 million a year ago. Revenues totaled $6.82 billion, a 12 percent increase from 2017. In 2018, the company’s flat rolled steel shipments totaled 5.68 million tons, compared to 5.6 million tons in 2017.
AK Steel said that it plans to increase its operating efficiency and lower its costs by completing the shutdown of the blast furnace and steelmaking operations at Ashland Works 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 US with available capacity before the end of this year. This 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.