City Council next week will consider recognizing SunCoke Middletown’s new limited liability corporation in its 2010 enterprise zone agreement with the company, which gives it a 50 percent tax abatement to real and personal property for 10 years.

The coke-producing company is forming Middletown Cogeneration Company LLC to take advantage of federal tax credits, according to Ken Kreider, an attorney working with SunCoke on the reorganization.

SunCoke’s parcel will be split “so that the energy assets will be on their own property and that way we would be able to isolate the income that’s produced from the energy part of the business,” he said.

Recognition of the LLC by council would not affect the city’s tax base, according to Middletown Economic Development Director Denise Hamet.

“The facility is anticipated to be taxed like personal property, so in order to maintain the tax exceptions for the cogeneration assets, Middletown Coke requests that the city approve the partial assignment of the enterprise zone to the new entity,” Hamet said.

The company produces energy, which uses waste heat from coke-making to produce steam and electricity.

“The employment and operations won’t change” as a result of the reorganization, Kreider said.

SunCoke Middletown is owned by Illinois-based SunCoke Energy.

The $400 million SunCoke Middletown plant was built to supply the steel industry, and primarily AK Steel, with coke, which is used in the steel-making process. SunCoke has a 20-year contract to supply AK Steel with coke.

The plant opened in October 2010 with more than 100 employees and surrounded by controversy, which included opposition and lawsuits by the city of Monroe and a residential organization called SunCoke Watch. The suits were settled in May, when SunCoke agreed to pay the city’s legal fees and to abide by stricter standards than environmental laws require.

Middletown City Council meets at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Middletown City Building, One Donham Plaza.