Ethanol Blog

A trade development mission last week revealed the possibility of increasing ag export markets in Chile and Peru, especially for feed ingredients such as U.S. grains and dried distillers grains with solubles.

According to an article by the U.S. Grains Council (http://bit.ly/…), the trade mission was led by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack along with members of the Council and participants from 34 agribusinesses and organizations. The trip's goal was to assess potential growth of exports of U.S. ag products to Chile and Peru in light of the free trade agreements in place between both countries and the U.S.

During the mission, the U.S. team met with potential customers, such as a Chilean company that is one of its largest protein providers. That company alone uses 2.2 million metric tons of feed ingredients annually and could be a potential new buyer of U.S. grains.

USGC Chairman Alan Tiemann said that the Chilean company indicated interest in both U.S. DDGS and soybean meal, but said that issues with logistical constraints and high prices have hindered its purchasing of U.S. Grains in the past.

Peru markets are committed to free and open trade, and the U.S. team especially pushed to expand the country's imports of U.S. ethanol in light of the 3,000 barrels per day the country needs to meet its mandate of 7.8% blend.

It is trade missions such as these, as well as other efforts by the Council, which have increased demand in many countries. This offsets the drop in DDG exports to China because of the country's recent anti-dumping and countervailing duties investigation against the U.S. This latest investigation has had much less of a devastating effect on the DDG market than the last investigation in 2010.

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

(ES)

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