Steel mills in the Great Lakes region, clustered mainly in Northwest Indiana, made 531,000 tons of metal in the week that ended Oct. 3, up from 526,000 tons the previous week.

Steel production is down by 19.6% for the year, while steel capacity utilization has fallen more than 11 percentage points year over year, largely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that greatly gutted demand for steel for much of the spring and early summer.

Overall, domestic steel mills in the United States made 1.484 million tons of steel last week, up 0.3% from 1.48 million tons the previous week and down 17.7% as compared to 1.803 million tons the same time a year prior.

Steel demand started plummeting in mid-March when automakers like Ford, General Motors, Honda and other automakers — some of the largest consumers of steel in North America — temporarily ceased production to curb the spread of COVID-19.

It forced Northwest Indiana steel mills to idle operations and temporarily lay off hundreds of workers.

Auto plants across the country have come back online and ramped back up production volume, leading local steel mills to restart blast furnaces at Gary Works, ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor and ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor. The Region's steel mills have been calling steelworkers back to work.

So far this year, domestic steel mills in the United States have made 59.44 million tons of steel, a 19.6% decrease compared to the 73.9 million tons made during the same period in 2019. 

U.S. steel mills have run at a capacity utilization rate of 66.2% through Oct. 3, down from 80.3% at the same point in 2019, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Steel capacity utilization nationwide was 66.6% last week, which was up from 66.1% the previous week and down from 77.7% at the same time a year ago.

Steel production in the southern region, a wide geographic swath that encompasses many mini-mills and rivals the Great Lakes region in output, was 575,000 tons last week, down from 590,000 tons the week before. Volume in the rest of the Midwest rose to 168,000 tons, up from 163,000 tons the week prior.

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