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Domestic ethanol production hits multi-month low

U.S. ethanol production last week fell below a million barrels a day for the first time since mid-June, down 37,000 barrels for an average of 996,000 barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

According to DTN, plant profitability has declined and there are uncertainties about demand with another push for lower renewable fuels volume. A lower volume of ethanol production would add more corn to the stockpile, but that could be at least partially be alleviated by increased import demand from China as Beijing plans to institute a national 10% ethanol blend standard by 2020. The USDA’s next set of supply and demand numbers, including the updated corn for ethanol use projection, is out October 12th.

The lower week to week move in production helped push ethanol stocks to their lowest level since early January, down 398,000 barrels on the week to 20.740 million barrels.