USDA: Corn use for fuel ethanol up in August

Source: By Erin Voegel, Ethanol Producer Magazine • Posted: Thursday, October 12, 2017

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service recently released the October edition of its Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production report, which shows corn use for fuel ethanol was up in July.

Total corn consumed for alcohol and other uses reached 542 million bushels in August, up 6 percent when compared to July and up 6 percent when compared to August 2016. Corn for fuel alcohol reached 481 million bushels, up 6 percent from July and up 5 percent from August 2016. According to the report, corn consumed for dry milling fuel production and wet milling fuel production was 89.5 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively.

The report also indicates that sorghum consumed at dry mill plants was down. Sorghum consumption for fuel alcohol reached 3.94 million hundredweight (cwt) (220,640 tons) in August, down from 5.332 million cwt in July and down from 4.366 million cwt in August of the previous year.

At dry mills, condensed distillers solubles production reached 132,678 tons, down from 142,865 tons in July and 143,040 tons in August 2016. Corn oil production reached 160,416 tons, up from 157,669 tons in July and 142,000 tons in August 2016. Distillers dried grains production reached 472,705 tons, up from 471,124 tons in July and 428,748 tons in August. Distillers dried grains with solubles production reached 2.06 million tons, up from 1.92 million tons in July, but down from 2.07 million tons in August 2016. Distillers wet grains production reached 1.35 million tons, up from 1.34 million tons in July and 1.23 million tons in August of the previous year. Modified distillers wet grains production reached 430,780 tons, up from 423,728 tons in July and 535,754 tons in August 2016.

At will mills, corn germ meal production reached 61,762 tons, up from 57,952 tons in July, but down from 65,783 tons in August 2016. Corn gluten feed production reached 367,675 tons, up from 323,031 tons in July and 336,916 tons in August of the previous year. Corn gluten feed meal production reached 92,950 tons, up from 85,087 tons in July and 87,793 tons in August 2016. Wet corn gluten feed production reached 324,598 tons, up from 272,165 tons in July and 309,077 tons in August of the prior year.

Carbon dioxide captured at dry and wet mill plants reached 230,591 tons, up from 207,049 tons in July and 224,408 tons in August 2016.

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