Ethanol production increased 46,000 barrels per day to a 663 million-barrel-per-day average during the week ending May 15, 2020, hitting a six week high, according to the EIA’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report. Production continued to improve for a third consecutive week, rising 7.5 percent but is still 38 percent below production levels at this time last year. DDGS output increased 4,375 metric tons daily for the week but is 38,804 MT below daily production from a year ago.

Gasoline supply declined 8.2 percent daily and is 30 percent below 2019 supply for the same weekly period. Ethanol stocks hit a 15-week low of 23.63 million barrels.  Ethanol imports were absent during the week. The increase in ethanol production raised corn demand by 681 thousand bushels per day. DDGS output moved in sync with ethanol production, rising 7.5 percent for the week.

Ethanol output is averaging 892,000 b/d over during 2020, down 11,450 barrels daily from last week and 136,538 barrels below average 2019 weekly production.  The ethanol blend rate increased to 9.8 percent. Average year to date gasoline demand is 58.1 million gallons per day below 2019 average demand.

Approximately 9.8 million bushels of corn were consumed daily in the production of ethanol and, as a co-product of production, 70,655 metric tons of livestock feed was produced daily. DDGS production accounted for 63,057 metric tons, with the balance comprised of 6,495 MT of corn gluten feed and 1,103 MT of corn gluten meal.

The estimated ethanol-processing margin improved during the week.  Revenue from ethanol and DDGS sales moved from $4.38 to $4.62 per bushel while the cost of corn increased nine cents to $3.10 per bushel.  This allowed the margin to expand 15 cents to $0.93 per bushel.  The estimated margin is 30 percent over levels from year ago.