Ethanol Blog

Prices of dried distillers grains still fell slightly this week, but seemed to lose their downward momentum after sizeable decreases in the past month.

Although the average fell $1 per ton in the past week, prices at most locations remained largely unchanged, with only a few small adjustments up or down.

The DTN weekly DDG spot price average fell just slightly, from $208 per ton last week to $207 per ton this week. This is the fifth consecutive week that the average has fallen, totaling a $20 per ton drop during that time, from $227 per ton the first week of September to this week's $207 average.

Of the 30 Midwestern locations DTN collects prices from, 16 locations reported their prices remained unchanged since last week. Prices at seven locations decreased mostly between $2 and $5 per ton in the past week, while prices at six locations increased mostly between $3 and $5 per ton. The price at one location was unavailable last week, so no change was available this week.

Merchandisers told DTN this week that the slight price decreases were still largely from DDG prices tracking corn, although supplies of spot product were a little short. Prices seemed to have leveled off somewhat, as new crop corn is not yet widely available to ethanol plants. More DDG price decreases will likely be in store as soon as plants can access more new crop corn and can all run 100%. In the meantime, demand for DDG exports continues high and may play a role in keeping prices from falling further at this time.

The value of DDG relative to corn this week was at about 132.25%, The value of DDG relative to corn this week was at 132.59%, however, that is a distorted number. The abrupt shift in the DDG to corn ratio after July 12 is due to the transition from July corn futures to the lower-priced September corn contract. The value of DDG relative to soybean meal was at about 48.77%.

The cost per unit of protein for DDG was $8.28 this week, compared to the cost per unit of protein for soybean meal at $8.93.

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

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