US raw steel production rose again last week, bringing national crude steelmaking capacity utilization to 58.1 percent, setting another new weekly utilization record for 2009.
The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Monday that raw steelmaking output from US steel producers in the week ended September 19, 2009 rose to 1,386,000 net tons (nt). This figure is up 1.0 percent from the prior week, though down 31.3 percent from the same week of last year.
US crude steel output has been on the rise for 13 consecutive weeks, though year-to-date crude steel output is about half of that produced in the same period of 2008 (41.9 million nt YTD September 19, 2009 vs. 80.2 million nt YTD September 19, 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.