The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Monday that US raw steel production fell another 1.2 percent in the week ended December 13, 2008.
US raw steel production for the week ended December 13 totaled 1,168,000 net tons (nt), compared to 1,182,000 nt the week before.
Compared to the same week of 2007, raw steel production for the week ended December 13, 2008 was down a significant 44.5 percent (Raw steel production for the week ended December 13, 2007 was 2,102,000 nt).
Capacity utilization saw a drop of 0.5 percent to 49.0 percent for the week ended December 13, 2008 in relation to the previous week. This compares to 88.1 percent capacity utilization for the week ended December 13, 2007.
Year-to-date, US raw steel production also saw another net drop compared to the same period of last year. YTD December 13, 2008, US raw steel production totaled 98,297,000 nt. This figure reflects a 4.7 percent drop from the 103,104,000 nt produced YTD December 13, 2007.