Ethanol manufacturers used 479.2 million bushels of corn in December, the highest use volume since September 2018. Dry mills accounted for 431.5 million bushels, or 90 percent of the total and up 3 percent from a year ago. Wet mill utilization, at 47.7 million bushels, hit a two-year high and was up 9 percent YOY.

Despite the larger increase in corn use, dry mills saw just a 1 percent YOY increase in distillers grains volume, with DG production at around 4.2 million tons. Wet distillers grains were up 2 percent from December 2018, while the volume of dry distillers grains was up less than 1 percent.

Distillers corn oil production continued to rebound from low levels during Sep-Oct. November DCO production was just under 160,000 tons, and December production was just over 165,200 tons, up 8 percent YOY.

Based on January weekly ethanol production rates, we estimate corn use was around 470 million bushels.

Monthly corn utilized for ethanol production


Source: EIA
Posted by: Information Services
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