Weekly domestic raw steel production increased 0.9% from last week’s 1.862 million tons (mt) to 1.878 mt for the week ending August 17, 2013, and is some 0.1% above the year-ago level of 1.876 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 increased from 77.7% last week to 78.4% this week, and is above the year-ago level of 75.9%.

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