US raw steel production rose by over two percent last week, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI)'s latest US weekly raw steel production report.
The AISI reported Monday that raw steelmaking output from US steel producers in the week ended October 24, 2009 rose to 1,507,000 net tons (nt). This figure is up 2.3 percent from 1,473,000 nt produced in the previous week (ended October 17, 2009) and is down 10.4 percent from the week ended October 24, 2008.
Last week's rise in output brought total raw steel production capacity utilization amongst American producers to 63.2 percent. This compares to 61.7 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 24 was down 44.8 percent from the same period of 2008 (49,177,000 nt YTD October 24, 2009 vs. 89,143,000 nt YTD October 24, 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.