Ethanol Blog

Ample supplies of dried distillers grains kept prices of dried distillers grains continuing a downward fall during the past week.

The DTN weekly spot price average fell a whopping $9 per ton in the past week, from $201 per ton last week to $192 per ton this week. This marks the ninth consecutive week prices have followed this downward trend, falling a total of $47 per ton since the first week of January. This is also the lowest the average has been since the last week in January.

Of the 30 Midwestern locations DTN collects spot prices from, 27 locations reported their spot prices had increased between $2 and $15 per ton in the past week. Only three locations reported their prices remained unchanged. No price increases were noted.

Merchandisers told DTN that many plants have extra supplies at present, making it difficult to price product. Unless there is new interest from lackluster export trade, it may be a while to find a fair value for DDG, as right now pricing is "all over the place," as one merchandiser described. Uncertainty over China's continuing issues with the MIR 162 GMO trait are still clouding the market as well.

The value of DDG relative to corn remained relatively unchanged at about 120% this week, while the value of DDG relative to soybean meal fell only slightly, from about 40% to about 39%.

The cost per unit of protein for DDG was at about $7.68 this week, compared to the cost per unit of protein for soybean meal at $10.33.

Cheryl Anderson can be reached at Cheryl.anderson@dtn.com.

(ES)

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