Weekly domestic raw steel production declined 0.8% to 1.961 million tons (mt) for the week ending May 26, 2012, falling for the second consecutive week from the post-recession high of 2.005 (mt).  Despite the downturn, production is up 8.9% compared to the year-ago level.  The lowest production level since the recession began was 800,000 for the week of December 27, 2008.

The capacity utilization rate also fell this week, dropping from 80.0% last week to 79.4%, but was higher than the year-ago level of 73.7%.  The lowest capacity utilization rate since the recession began was 33.5% for the week of December 27, 2008; the highest was 81.1% on May 12, 2012.

Note: AISI weekly production data only includes real-time input from 50% of producing members; the remainder of the data is a guesstimate based on each company’s prior-month production and therefore the weekly AISI data lags when there are production cuts or increases going on.

Source: AISI and Steel Market Intelligence