Domestic Fuel

The first guess of corn production for the new year in USDA’s May 10 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report is even higher than many in the industry expected.

“By all accounts, it could be a monster,” says Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) Vice President of Research and Analysis Geoff Cooper who did an analysis of the numbers that came out this morning.

Besides a record projected corn crop for 2012 of 14.8 billion bushels, Cooper says there are a number of interesting points to be made about the report, like the fact that use for ethanol is expected to remain steady, while usage for exports and animal feed are increased. “This report shows the increases in demand would not be coming from ethanol,” Cooper says. “So all this rhetoric we hear about ethanol diverting corn away from the feed market, what we’re seeing in this report is that isn’t the case.”

In addition, Cooper says adding in the use of the ethanol co-product distillers grains for livestock feed, “you end up with the equivalent of almost seven billion bushels of corn and co-products going into feed use and that’s an all time record.”

Listen to Cooper’s analysis of the numbers in this edition of “The Ethanol Report.” Geoff Cooper Analyzes USDA WASDE Report