For the week ending October 27, 2012, weekly domestic raw steel production declined 2.5% to 1.679 million tons (mt), dropping to the lowest level since December 2010, and is now down some 16.3% below the peak on May 12.

We would caution readers that only half of the AISI reporting companies release their weekly production in “real time” so the other half of this data is estimated using the last month’s reported production & operating rate. What this means is that when production is changing, the weekly data is actually understating the change.

Capacity utilization fell from last week’s 69.7% to 67.9% this week, also dropping to the lowest since December 2010.

The lowest production since the recession began was 800,000 tons for the week of December 27, 2008, while the highest was 2.005 mt for the week of May 12, 2012. 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.

Source: AISI and Steel Market Intelligence