Steel Products Prices North America

Steel Production Inches Up to 81.8 Percent

Written by Tim Triplett

February 18, 2020

Raw steel production in the week ending Feb. 15 totaled 1,907,000 net tons, a small 0.4 percent increase from the prior week to a strong mill utilization rate of 81.8 percent. Production last week was down 0.5 percent from the same period last year, reported the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Adjusted year-to-date production through Feb. 15 totaled 12,575,000 net tons at a utilization rate of 82.1 percent. That’s up 1.4 percent from production in the same period last year when the average utilization rate was 81.3 percent.

Following is production by district for the Feb. 15 week: North East: 233,000 net tons; Great Lakes, 684,000 net tons; Midwest, 202,000 net tons; South, 717,000 net tons; and West, 71,000 net tons, for a total of 1,907,000 tons. Production for the week was down in the Great Lakes and West, but up in the other regions.

The raw steel production tonnage provided in this report is estimated. The figures are compiled from weekly production tonnage from 50 percent of the domestic producers combined with monthly production data for the remainder. Therefore, this report should be used primarily to assess production trends. The AISI monthly production report provides a more detailed summary of steel production based on data supplied by companies representing 75 percent of U.S. production capacity.

Note, capability for first-quarter 2020 is approximately 30.3 million tons compare with 29.9 million tons for the same period last year and 30.4 million tons for fourth-quarter 2019.

Tim Triplett

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