EIA Weekly Ethanol Data Recap Posted on 7/20/2016 10:10:08 AM byRandy Mittelstaedt -Ethanol production surges to record high -Weekly production meets “needed” level for USDA corn demand target -Ethanol stocks nearly unchanged – at record-high July levels It was an impressive week for U.S. ethanol production, surging to 1.029 million barrels/day (303 million gallons/week) for the week ended 7/15/16, up sharply from the previous week’s 1.004 million bpd (295 million gal/week) and easily surpassing the previous alltime record weekly production of 1.013 million bpd set in the 2nd week of June. Moreover, this week’s 5.8% increase to last year’s same week production was the largest year-over-year gain in weekly production since late February, while production equated to a very impressive annualized rate of 15.775 billion gallons. All of those numbers certainly are very impressive, but they only go to highlight the potential difficulty in still reaching the USDA’s 2015/16 corn for ethanol usage estimate of 5.225 billion bushels as this week’s 1.029 million bpd production rate was right in line with the roughly 1.030 million bpd average weekly rate we see as necessary through the end of August for the USDA’s corn demand estimate to be achieved. In other words, production needs to run at this week’s all-time record pace over the next 7 weeks just to reach the USDA’s current corn for ethanol usage estimate. To put that in additional perspective, this week’s 5.8% year-over-year gain in weekly production was the largest in five months, yet the 1.029 million bpd “needed” production rate reflects a 7.4% increase from last year’s average production from this point forward. Certainly there is plenty of work to do if corn for ethanol usage is to not fall short of the USDA’s current target. With the sharp increase in production, ethanol stocks continue to run at historically high levels with current stocks of 889 million gallons (21.157 million barrels) up slightly from last week’s 888 million gallons (21.131 million barrels), but, more importantly, are 8.2% above last year’s previous mid-July record stocks of 821 million gallons (19.559 million barrels. Ethanol stocks seasonally tend to decline at this time of the year, but have had a steady/higher bias over the last six weeks
