For the week ending November 3, 2012, weekly domestic raw steel production increased 2.3% to 1.746 million tons (mt), the largest weekly percentage gain since December of last year, but still some 12.9% below the recent 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 rose to 70.7% from 69.1% last week, the first time above 70% since October 13.

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