According to statistics released by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), the US produced 1.756 million short tons of crude steel in the week ended on January 5th, 2013, decreasing by 3.9% from a week earlier and falling by 7.7% in comparison of 1.902 million short tons in the same period of a year ago.
In the given period of time, the capacity utilization rate of the US steelmaking facilities was at 72.6%, lower than 73.9% in a week ago.