For the week ending May 4, 2013, weekly domestic raw steel production rose for the second consecutive week to 1.884 million tons (mt), up 1.0% from 1.866 mt last week and the highest since last August. Despite the increase, production is down 5.7% from the year-ago level of 1.963 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 an 11-month high of 78.6%, up from 77.9% last week, but still down from the year-ago level of 79.4%.
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
