US raw steel production increased by another 1.9 percent last week, reported the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).
The AISI reported Monday that raw steelmaking output from US steel producers in the week ended October 17, 2009 rose to 1,473,000 net tons (nt). This figure is up 1.9 percent from the prior week and down 12.2 percent from the same week of last year.
Last week's rise in output brought total raw steel production capacity utilization amongst American producers to 61.7 percent. This compares to 60.6 percent in the previous week and 70.5 percent in the same week of last year.
US crude steel output has been rising on a consecutive weekly basis since late June, though year-to-date crude steel output as of October 17 was down 45.5 percent from the same period of 2008 (47,670,000 nt YTD October 17, 2009 vs. 87,461,000 nt YTD October 17, 2008).
AISI's raw steel production figures are compiled from weekly production tonnage provided from 50 percent of the US domestic steel producers combined with monthly production data for the remainder.