Ethanol Blog

There is a lot of news that ethanol inventory levels are at all-time lows following the EIA report on Thursday. Total ethanol domestic stocks fell 8.4 million gallons at the end of last week before the holiday weekend. This pulled overall inventory levels to just 672 million gallons.

Traditionally ethanol stocks build at this time of year and continue to erode through the early part of the summer. The Energy Information Administration started recording ethanol stocks in June 2010. The current levels have fallen to the lowest levels since the time EIA has kept records.

But when the ethanol industry was in its infancy and growing through the last decade, stocks surely were lower than current levels. Total production of ethanol slowed the week before Memorial Day, with current production listed at 36.2 million gallons per day. This means that with the current stock levels, there is an 18.5-day supply available to the market. It is likely that stocks will continue to erode through the next couple of months.

Rick Kment can be reached at rick.kment@telventdtn.com

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