For the week ending April 6, 2013, weekly domestic raw steel production rose for the third consecutive week to 1.858 million tons (mt), up 2.1% from 1.819 mt last week and the highest level in seven months.  Despite the increase, production is down 5.1% from the year-ago level of 1.958 mt.

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 was at 77.6%, up from 75.9% last week and the highest since last June. However, capacity utilization was down from the year-ago level of 79.2%.

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