Weekly domestic raw steel production decreased 3.1% from 1.881 million tons (mt) last week to 1.822 mt for the week ending June 29, 2013, halting a three-week upward trend and falling some 3.1% from the year-ago level of 1.881 mt.  We suspect the drop is mainly driven by the blast furnace outage at AK Steel’s Middletown Works.

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 decreased for the first time in three weeks, dropping from 78.5% last week to 76.1%, the same as level asa year-ago.

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