Ethanol Blog

Ethanol plants are more diversified and stabilized than in the industry's early days, thanks to additional revenue streams from various co-products, according to an article in Ethanol Producer (http://bit.ly/…).

Besides sales of distillers grains, more than 25% of plants now recapture and sell CO2 and more than half extract corn oil. Revenue from these co-products accounted for 23% of the average revenue for ethanol plants in the first half of 2012, up from 16% in 2008.

In addition, co-products brought an average of 62 cents per sales gallon in Q2 of 2012, higher than the last quarter of 2010 when it was 39 cents per gallon.

These additional income streams gives the industry better ability to withstand low ethanol prices and tight margins, and the effects of this year's drought, but also reflects integration with other industries to achieve the best return on co-product investments.

Cheryl Anderson can be reached at cheryl.anderson@telventdtn.com.

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