Ethanol output last week averaged 998,000 barrels per day (bpd), which was down from the previous week’s all-time record high of 1.03 million bpd, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Prior to this corn marketing year, the record weekly ethanol production was 994,000 bpd. For this year, however, which started on September 1, 2015, U.S. ethanol weekly average production has surpassed the one million barrels per day weekly average production benchmark eight times, including the weeks ending on November 20 and December 11, 2015, as well as January 8, June 3, June 10, June 24, and July 8, and July 15, 2016.
(Source: EIA, NCC)
For the corn marketing year-to-date, total ethanol production has reached 13.45 billion gallons, which is roughly equivalent to 4.8 billion bushels of corn. That is 92 percent of the 5.225 billion bushels of corn USDA projected in the July World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report would be used for ethanol in the
2015-16 marketing year, with five more weeks left in the marketing year that ends on August 31, 2016. To hit the USDA’s projection, ethanol production would have to fall off its average pace for the year to by 17 percent, or fall off the July pace by more than 20 percent.
Should ethanol production keep its seasonal average weekly pace for the year to date, total production would be 14.9 billion gallons and corn use would be 5.32 billion bushels. Thus, by the end of the marketing year, corn use in ethanol is likely to be 95 million bushels above the WASDE projection.
With the increased volume for 2017 proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ethanol production will likely exceed the 15 billion gallon ceiling set by Congress in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), with the additional production exported. That volume of ethanol production could use as much as 5.55 billion bushels of corn during the 2016-2017 marketing year. The July WASDE report projects 5.275 billion bushels for ethanol use in the 2016-2017 marketing year.
