Great Lakes steel production ticks up slightly

Steel production ticked up last week by 2,000 tons in the Great Lakes region, according to Washington, D.C.-based American Iron and Steel Institute, the steel industry's trade association.

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That's a week-over-week increase of 0.33%. So far this year, steel production nationally is trailing last year's pace by 2.

1%. Steel mills in the Great Lakes region, clustered mainly along the south shore of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana, made 594,000 tons of metal in the week that ended Nov. 9, up from 592,000 tons the previous week.



Nationally, steel mills fell short of 80% capacity last week, which is a key threshold for the industry's financial success. Overall, domestic steel mills made 1.649 million tons of steel last week, up 1.

2% from 1.629 million tons the previous week, according to the AISI. So far this year, domestic steel mills have made 75.

76 million tons of steel, down 2.1% from 77.36 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% through Saturday, down from 76.

1% at the same point in 2023, according to the AISI. Steel capacity utilization was 74.2% last week, up from 73.

4% a year earlier and up from 73.3% 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 684,000 tons last week, up from 671,000 tons the week before, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Steel production in the rest of the Midwest rose by 8,000 tons to 194,000 tons..