The main stack is approximately 200 feet tall. By comparison, the silo on the site that holds coal - and is nearly finished - is roughly 150 feet tall, Reyes said.
SunCoke is building a $370 million coke plant off Yankee Road that will supply AK Steel with coke, a raw material for steelmaking.
On May 24, Yankee Road is scheduled to be closed for one day while a conveyor belt is placed in trusses by a 200-pound crane across the roadway, Reyes said. He said the conveyor belt will be enclosed and will carry the coke made at the plant to a transfer station for AK Steel Corp. to pick up.
When the plant is up and running, coke will travel above Yankee Road during production — generally between 6 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., said Robert Parnell, SunCoke general manager, who is in charge of getting the plant operational.
The construction update was part of the Monday night meeting of the SunCoke Energy Middletown Community Advisory Panel, a group of local stakeholders and SunCoke officials which meets once a month at Middletown Area Senior Center.
Construction of the coke plant was about 80 percent complete, said Reyes. As of April 30, 950 workers were on site, but that figure dropped to about 850 people Monday, he said.
The company has filled or offered jobs for 58 of 92 positions available, said Dovie Majors, the permanent plant manager.
It’s been difficult to fill production technician positions, which still have 26 openings, because they require an Ohio stationary engineer license, she said. Eleven of the production technician jobs have been filled or offered, Majors said.
A total 2,055 different applications for hourly jobs were received. It is the goal to fill all jobs by July 1, she said.
The company has targeted September for completion of the plant.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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