Weekly domestic raw steel production increased 0.9% to 1.947 million tons (mt) for the week ending March 3, 2012, which is a post-recession high and 6.6% higher than the year-ago level. The lowest production since the recession began was 0.8 mt on December 27, 2008.

The capacity utilization rate also hit a post-recession high, coming in at 78.8% compared to 78.1% last week and 74.7% a year ago. The lowest capacity utilization rate since the recession began was 33.5% on December 27, 2008.

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