Market News & Headlines >> June Corn-for-Ethanol Use Down

Monday afternoon’s monthly Grain Crushings report from USDA showed U.S. use of corn for fuel ethanol production during June was down 4.5% from a year earlier. 

USDA pegged June corn-for-ethanol use at 421.3 million bushels, down 20 million bushels from 441.3 million a year earlier and also down 4.5 million from May use of 425.8 million bushels.

 Corn-for-ethanol use was down in June in part because some ethanol plants continued to use grain sorghum as a feedstock, although sorghum use for ethanol production dipped to 5.978 million hundredweight (10.68 million bushels) from 6.301 million hundredweight (11.25 million bushels) in May. 

In addition, the USDA grain crush data and Energy Information Administration weekly ethanol production data imply a higher corn-to-ethanol conversion rate this year, meaning less corn was required. 

Through the end of June, corn-for-ethanol 2015/16 corn-for-ethanol use totaled roughly 4.29 billion bushels, slightly behind the year-earlier pace.