US ethanol production falls 41k bd to dent corn consumption

US ethanol production levels fell 41,000 b/d in the week ending February 9, to take daily production to 1.061 million barrels per day, data from the Energy Information Administration showed Wednesday.

It is the second lowest production level of 2018 and the biggest week-on-week fall in production levels since the end of December.

Moreover, it is 24,000 barrels per day below the levels seen in February 2017 and means the four-week average production level and the cumulative daily average production level are both below that of the corresponding figures for 2017.

Production fell in all the major PAD districts with the heaviest falls seen in the Midwest and US Gulf Coast. Production ticked up by 1,000 barrels in the Rockies.

Stock levels also fell 604,000 barrels to 22.8 million barrels, with two-thirds of the stock decline seen in the PADD 1 East Coast region and a further 30% of the fall seen in the Midwest.

Despite the fall in production, implied corn demand based on an assumed average production level of 2.8 gallons per bushel took corn consumption to 106 million bushels for the week – well on course to surpass the USDA’s estimate of 5.525 billion bushels.