Weekly domestic raw steel production for the week ending July 21, 2012 fell for the third straight week, coming in at 1.837 million tons (mt) – the lowest since November 28, 2011 – and down 0.3% from last week’s 1.843 mt, but up some 0.4% year-on-year.

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 prior months’ reported production & operating rate. What this means is that when the operating rate is declining as it is right now, the weekly data is actually understating the decline.

Capacity utilization also fell from 75.0% last week to 74.3% this week, the lowest since last December and slightly below the year-ago level of 74.8%.

The lowest production level since the recession began was 800,000 tons for the week of December 27, 2008. The highest level since the recession began 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