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MIDDLETOWN — Capital investments are what keep Middletown Works a viable facility for AK Steel Corp. So much so that officials say without the newest investment — a $340 million coke oven facility to be built by SunCoke Energy — by this time next year, there could be no more steel.

A public hearing regarding the air permit for the coke facility was held by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on Aug. 21. Until the permit is approved, construction cannot begin, according to Ohio EPA officials.

Due to low demand for steel products, AK Steel already has announced it will temporarily lay off about 1,000 workers until mid-January at its facilities in Mansfield, Ohio, and Ashland, Ky.

Middletown's hot strip mill, which makes steel slabs into coils, has kept operations moving locally despite the downturn, with only 200 to 300 of the mill's 2,000 workers seeing their schedules cut to 32 hours per week. In addition, some of those same workers will not be scheduled the week of Thanksgiving due to lack of orders, said Scott Rich, president of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 1943, which represents the local plant's hourly work force.

But he warned things could get much worse if Middletown Works is out of coke.

"We made a bargain to have steel in this town a long time ago and it's been a good thing for many, many years," he said. "(The coke facility) is very important to the long-term job security of our plant. It brings sharply into focus during this downturn just how important it is to have capital investments in and around your mill."

Not only will the facility help AK Steel make steel products less expensively and cleaner, it would help secure the company's local viability for at least the next 20 years, said Charles Bradford, a market analyst with Soleil Securities Group in New York.

AK's current coke supplier will not have any product by December 2009. While it could buy coke on the open market, it would be expensive and the supply is not a surety; and potentially it would not be able to complete orders, said Alan McCoy, AK spokesman.

"Imagine if you had to buy electricity and natural gas month to month and you don't get it," he said. "It's imperative to us that this project get off the ground."