Ethanol Blog

Spot ethanol prices moved flat to lower at key hubs after the Energy Information Administration released weekly data that showed stockpiles of the gasoline blendstock soared 700,000 bbl to a near 17-month high at 18.6 million bbl.

“We continue to see increases in [ethanol production] profit margins,” said Brandan Marshall, analyst for Northstar Commodities of Minneapolis, Minn., driving the high output rate. “It was 40cts last week and has gone to 60cts gallon now.”

“We’ve just got to hold the unleaded demand together,” he said, to absorb the new supply.

Implied gasoline demand averaged 8.948 million bpd during the four weeks ended July 25, down 1.0% from a year ago, EIA reported.

Spot ethanol in Chicago traded flat at $2.18 gallon while New York Harbor was down 2.0cts at $2.255 gallon and northern California eased 2.5cts at $2.32 gallon.

Myke Feinman can be reached at myke.feinman@telventdtn.com.

(CZ)

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