For the week ending February 9, 2013, weekly domestic raw steel production rose 1.2% to 1.822 million tons (mt) – and is up 8.5% from the recent low of 1.679 mt for the week of October 27, 2012 but still down 5.6% from a year ago.

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 76.1%, up from 75.2% last week but down from the year-ago level of 80.7%.

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