The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Monday that for the month of August 2012, US steel mills shipped 8,377,162 net tons, a 5.9 percent increase from the 7,910,486 net tons shipped in July, and a 0.9 percent increase from the 8,304,638 net tons shipped in August 2011. Shipments year-to-date in 2012 are 66,404,752, a 9.8 percent increase compared to 2011 shipments of 60,493,945 for eight months. Shipments for August 2012 would annualize at 98 million tons.
Shipments in August were the highest of the three most recent shipment reports and just 0.7 percent below the 8,436,831 tons shipped in May. The AISI also said that September and October figures indicate production has declined since August: raw steel capacity utilization in September was 72.8 percent, down 3.5 percent from August. Weekly raw steel production utilization for the weeks of October 7 and 13, respectively, were 71.1 and 70.3 percent, a 10 percent drop from the peak 2012 monthly utilization of 80.9 in April.
A comparison of August shipments to the previous month of July shows the following changes: hot dipped galvanized sheets and strip rose 5 percent, hot rolled sheet shipments increased 5 percent and cold rolled sheet shipments fell 1 percent.