National steel production is nearly 22% higher than at the same time last year, when steel mills fell to just over half of their capacity at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. With strong demand and skyrocketing prices, factories have been operating at over 80% of capacity this year.

Steel mills in the Great Lakes region, clustered primarily along the southern shore of Lake Michigan in northwest Indiana, produced 641,000 tonnes of metal in the week ending September 18 , against 638,000 tonnes the previous week.

Overall, the domestic steel mills in the United States manufactured 1.874 million tonnes of steel last week, down 0.4% from 1.882 million tonnes the week before, and up 21, 9% from 1.537 million tonnes in the same period the year before, when the onset of the coronavirus pandemic shut down auto factories and other factories, significantly depleting demand for steel.

So far this year, domestic steel mills in the United States have manufactured 67.66 million tonnes of steel, an increase of 20.2% from the 56.3 million tonnes produced in the same period. in 2020.

U.S. steel mills operated at a capacity utilization rate of 80.9 percent through Sept. 18, up from 66.8 percent at the same time in 2020, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.