For the week ending November 17, 2012, weekly domestic raw steel production increased for the third consecutive week, rising 2.6% to a two-month high of 1.792 million tons (mt) compared to 1.745 mt the previous week.. Despite the current string of increases, production levels are still down some 10.6% from 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 72.5% from 70.7% last week, the first time above 72% since September 22.

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