US Steel Shipments Rose Marginally in June

ALBANY (Scrap Monster): The most recent trade data published by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) suggests that steel shipments by the US mills edged higher slightly by 1% over the previous month. Also, the shipments recorded marginal rise by 1.4% when compared with the same month a year before.

The US steel mills shipped 7,736,846 net tons in June this year. The shipments were up slightly by nearly 1% when matched with 7,660,969 net tons shipped during May 2017. Over the previous year, the steel shipments registered marginal increase. The shipments had totaled 7,628,953 net tons in June 2016. Shipments of Hot Rolled Sheets remained more or less flat during the month. When matched with the prior month, shipments of cold rolled sheets declined by nearly 4%. Meantime, hot dipped galvanized sheets and strip registered marginal increase in shipments upon comparison with the previous month.

The steel shipments during the initial six months of 2017 totaled 45,459,086 net tons. The cumulative steel shipments during the initial half-yearly period in 2017 were up by 3.0% when matched with the shipments during the corresponding six-month period in 2016. The shipments had totaled 44,138,403 during January to June in 2016.

Meantime, the weekly statistics released by the steel body indicates that raw steel production by the country dropped slightly by 0.4% during the week ending on August 5^th, 2017.

The domestic raw steel output during the week ending August 5^th totaled 1,762,000 net tons. The AISI data indicates that the US raw steel production has declined marginally by 0.4% during the week. This is in comparison with the previous week (ie., the week ending July 29^th)  production figures of 1,769,000 net tons. On the other hand, the production recorded 6.3% jump when matched with same period the previous year, when production had totaled only 1,658,000 net tons.

The capability utilization rate of US steel makers was 75.6% during the week ended August 5, 2017. The capacity utilization rate has dropped marginally when compared with 75.9% during the previous week (ie., the week ending July 29^th). Meantime, capacity utilization rate was up significantly when compared with the rate of 70.9% during same week the previous year.

The district wise crude steel production during the week is as follows: North East- 215,000 net tons, Great Lakes-662,000 net tons, Midwest-164,000 net tons, Southern-642,000 net tons and Western-79,000 net tons.

The year-to-date crude steel output through August 5, 2017 totaled 53,870,000 net tons. When matched with the production of 52,451,000 net tons during the same period last year, the output has increased by 2.7%. The average capacity utilization rate stood at 72.4% during the year-to-date period.