Steel production rose last week by 5,000 tons in the Great Lakes region, snapping a streak of four straight weeks of decline, according to Washington, D.C.-based American Iron and Steel Institute, the steel industry’s trade association.
That’s an increase of 0.9%.
So far this year, steel production nationally is trailing last year’s pace by 2.7%.
Steel mills in the Great Lakes region, clustered mainly along the south shore of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana, made 555,000 tons of metal in the week that ended May 25, up from 550,000 tons the previous week but down from 576,000 tons four weeks prior.
Nationally, steel mills remained below 80% capacity last week, but have been moving back toward that key threshold for financial success.
Overall, domestic steel mills made 1.735 million tons of steel last week, up 0.4% from 1.728 million tons the previous week, according to the AISI.
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So far this year, domestic steel mills have made 35.437 million tons of steel, down 2.7% from 36.413 million tons of steel at the same point last year, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.
U.S. steel mills have run at a capacity utilization rate of 76.5% through Saturday, down from 77.9% at the same point in 2022, according to the AISI.
Steel capacity utilization was 78.1% last week, up from 77.9% a year earlier and up from 77.8% a week earlier.
Steel production in the southern region, which encompasses many mini-mills across a wide geographic area and rivals the Great Lakes region in output, totaled 762,000 tons last week, down from 765,000 tons the week before, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. Steel production in the rest of the Midwest rose by 4,000 tons to 211,000 tons.