For the week ending December 1, 2012, weekly domestic raw steel production rose 1.4% to a 15-week high of 1.827 million tons (mt), and is now up 8.8% from the recent low of 1.679 mt for the week of October 27, 2012.

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 came in at 73.9%, up from 72.9% last week, but still down from the year-ago level of 78.5%.

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