Ethanol Blog

With the holiday weekend ahead, prices of dried distillers grains dropped substantially amid booming product and lower demand.

Of the 30 Midwestern locations DTN collects spot prices from, all 30 reported their prices decreased between $5 and $35 per ton in the past week, though most increases were in the $5 to $15-per-ton range.

The DTN weekly spot price average fell a whopping $11 per ton in the past two weeks, from $219 per ton May 9 to $208 per ton this week. This is the lowest point the average has reached since mid-February, and is the seventh consecutive week that the average continued on a down-ward trend.

Merchandisers told DTN that plants are ramping up production after they finished up spring maintenance shutdowns and also caught up after logistical dilemmas. There had been especially severe problems with rail car deliveries that caused plants to lower production earlier this year when they began to run out of storage.

With huge improvements in logistics, for rail and truck, plants are running smoothly and some may lower prices in light of the long holiday weekend to avoid a build-up of product. Some reduced buying may also cause some plants to drop prices; there have also been decreases in the corn board and some recent dips in buying from China.

The value of DDG relative to corn in the past two weeks has finally dropped, from about 127% May 9 to about 122% this week. The value of DDG relative to soybean meal also dropped from about 45% May 9 to about 41% this week.

The cost per unit of protein for DDG this week was $8.32, down from $8.76 last week. The cost per unit of protein for soybean meal remained relative unchanged at about $10.56.

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

(ES)

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