Weekly domestic raw steel production dropped some 2.1% to 1.920 million tons (mt) for the week ending June 2, 2012, falling for the third consecutive week from the post-recession high of 2.005 (mt) to the lowest level since January.  Despite the downturn, production is up some 4.9% 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 from 79.4% last week to 77.7% this week, but was higher than the year-ago level of 74.8%.  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