Local steel production falls 10,000 tons

Raw steel production in Indiana and the Chicago area, the nation's second-largest steel-producing region, was 501,000 tons in the week that ended Saturday.

Production was down from 511,000 tons the prior week, according to estimates from the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Production in the Southern District, the nation's largest steel-producing region, was estimated at 645,000 tons during the period that ended Saturday, down from 653,000 tons produced a week earlier.

Domestic mills produced 1.9 million tons of steel last week, up 5.3 percent from the same period in 2011.

U.S. steel mills operated at 76.2 percent of the available production capacity last week, which is down from a 76.5 percent production rate a week earlier.

An estimated 3.8 million tons of steel has been produced so far in 2012 at domestic steel mills, compared to about 3.6 million tons made at the same time last year.