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    Steel Products Prices North America

    Questions Regarding Capacity Utilization Rates

    Written by John Packard


    Steel Market Update received the following question from one of our readers yesterday (Wednesday, May 18th) regarding the weekly capacity utilization rates that are produced by the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) and are published in our Tuesday evening newsletter.

    “This morning I was reading the latest SMU report and I was left wondering of the apparent contradiction between the longer lead times, market price increases, versus the low mill utilization rate. One would logically expect that a 73 percent mill utilization should result in short lead times and a subdued market price. This is not what we are seeing in the NA market. One could make a reasonable point that the steel mills artificially extending the lead times to support higher market prices.” 

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