For the week ending April 27, 2013, weekly domestic raw steel production rose to 1.866 million tons (mt), up 0.4% from 1.858 mt last week.  Despite the increase, production is down 6.8% from the year-ago level of 1,997 mt.

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 rose to 77.9%, up from 77.6% last week, but still down from the year-ago level of 80.0%.

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

For the week ending April 20, 2013, weekly domestic raw steel production fell to 1.858 million tons (mt), a1.2% drop from 1.880 mt last week, which was the highest level since August 11, 2012.  Production also declined 7.2% from the year-ago level of 2.003 mt.

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 was at 77.6%, down from 78.5% last week, which was the highest since May 26, 2012.  Capacity utilization was also down from the year-ago level of 81.1%.

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