Weekly domestic raw steel production dropped some 1.8% to 1.886 million tons (mt) for the week ending June 9, 2012, falling for the fourth consecutive week to the lowest level since January 14, 2012, and is now down some 5.9% from the post-recession high of 2.005 (mt) on May 12, 2012.  Despite the downturn, production is up some 2.4% 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 77.7% last week to 76.3% this week, but was slightly higher than the year-ago level of 75.3%.  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