USDA: Corn Use for Fuel Ethanol up in November

By Erin Voegele

The USDA recently released its Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production report for January, reporting that corn use for fuel ethanol production in November 2021 was up from both the previous month and November 2020.

Total corn consumed for alcohol and other uses was 521 million bushels in November, up slightly from October and up 8 percent when compared to November of the previous year. Usage included 92.2 percent for alcohol and 7.8 percent for other purposes.

Corn consumed for fuel alcohol was at 469 million bushels in November, up slightly from the previous month and up 9 percent when compared to November 2020. Corn consumed for dry milling fuel production and wet milling fuel production was at 92 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

The USDA did not report how much grain sorghum went to fuel ethanol production in November. The data was withheld to avoid disclosing data for individual operations.

At dry mills, condensed distillers solubles production was at 87,051 tons in November, down from 95,239 tons the previous month, but up from 73,803 tons in November of the previous year. Corn oil production expanded to 187,291 tons, up from both 183,804 tons in October and 166,596 tons in November 2020. Distillers dried grains production was at 379,071 tons, down from 383,939 tons in October, but up from 372,899 tons in November of the previous year. Distillers dried grains with solubles production expanded to nearly 2 million tons, up from 1.95 million tons in October and 1.79 tons in November 2020. Distillers wet grains production reached 1.33 million tons, up from 1.3 million tons the previous month and 1.11 million tons in the same month of the previous year. Modified distillers wet grains production reached 515,759 tons, up from 396,748 tons in October and 421,779 tons in November 2020.