For the week ending May 18, 2013, weekly domestic raw steel production rose to 1.904 million tons (mt), up 1.2% from 1.881 mt last week to the highest rate since June 2, 2012. However, output is still 3.6% below the year-ago level of 1.976 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 also rose from 78.5% last week to 79.5% this week, reaching the highest since May 26, 2012, and just below the year-ago level of 80.0%.

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