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Weekly ethanol production drops

Ethanol production dropped last week.

According to government data, production averaged 998-thousand barrels per day, down 31-thousand from the previous week’s record high.

Stocks of ethanol also fell, to 20.4 million barrels, a nearly four percent decrease from the previous week and an eight-week low.

Platts.com, an energy news web site, estimates the amount of U.S. corn used for domestic ethanol production in the current corn marketing year is just over 4.8 billion bushels. That’s 92 percent of the USDA’s 5.225 billion bushel projection for the marketing year, which ends on August 31st.

To meet the USDA projection, Platts says corn usage must average 76-million bushels per week for the rest of the marketing year. Last week’s corn-for-ethanol usage was nearly 105 million bushels, according to Platts’ estimates.