Steel Products Prices North America
August 25, 2020
Mills Continue to Dial Up Production
Written by Tim Triplett
For the 11th week in a row, domestic steelmakers continued to dial up their production–a sign of improving steel demand. Raw steel output by U.S. mills totaled 1,412,000 net tons in the week ending Aug. 22, with the mills hitting an average utilization rate of 63.0 percent, reported the American Iron and Steel Institute. That’s a 23.4 percent improvement (11.9 percentage points) from the low in the week ending May 2 when the mills only produced 1,144,000 tons at a utilization rate of 51.1 percent.
Production in the Aug. 22 week was up 2.5 percent from the prior week when the capability utilization rate was 61.5 percent, but remained 23.3 percent below the same week last year.
