Renewable Energy Report: December 2016 Report

The Renewable Fuels Monthly Report is produced as a partnership between the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center operated by the Value Added Agriculture Program at Iowa State Extension and Outreach (ISUEO), the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative (IGQI), an ISUEO program directed specifically at grain processing and handling, and is authored by Decision Innovation Solutions, LLC, an economic research and analysis firm located in Urbandale, Iowa.

According to the most recent Weekly Ethanol Plant Production report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. ethanol production reached 1.017 million barrels per day for the week ending November 11. Correspondingly, weekly ending stocks of fuel ethanol are at 18.609 million barrels as published by EIA’s Weekly Supply Estimates report.

To understand the relationship between ethanol prices and ethanol ending stocks, we begin by doing simple linear correlation among three major determinants of ethanol price — monthly average corn price, monthly average wholesale gasoline price, and monthly ethanol ending stocks. All the relevant data are collected from the USDA’s bioenergy statistics. 

The USDA released the November report of the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) on November 9, 2016. Compared with the October 2016 WASDE report, the November report forecasts higher corn production, increased food, seed and industrial (FSI) use — including corn use for ethanol production, larger ending stocks, and slightly higher prices during the 2016/17 marketing year.

Due to increased expected yield, now at a record 175.3 bushels per acre or 1.9 more bushels per acre than last month’s projection, the production forecast for the 2016/17 marketing year now stands at 15.226 billion bushels, which is 169 million bushels up from last month’s projection and a record high. If realized, production would be up 1.625 billion bushels from the 2015/16 marketing year estimate.  Supply is projected at a record of 17.013 billion bushels. Ending stocks were up 83 million bushels to 2.403 billion bushels from the October forecast and 665 million bushels above last year’s estimate. The projected ending stocks would be the highest since 1987/88 (2.4 billion bushels). The projected price, now at $3.30/bushel, is up $0.05/bushel from last month’s projection, but down $0.31/bushel from last year’s estimate. The projected price increase this month is based on early-season price strength.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) recently published an interesting article on the important role of agriculture on the Paris Climate Agreement. The article can be found...

The spreadsheets listed below provide data and trends for various components of the renewable energy industry. These files are updated with new information each month.