US raw steel production rose again last week, bringing national crude steelmaking capacity utilization to 59.3 percent, its highest level this year.
The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Monday that raw steelmaking output from US steel producers in the week ended October 3, 2009 rose to 1,415,000 net tons (nt). This figure is up 1.7 percent from the prior week, and down 23.6 percent from 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 3 was down 46.8 percent from the same period of 2008 (44.8 million nt YTD October 3, 2009 vs. 84.1million nt YTD October 3, 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.