Ethanol Blog

U.S. Ethanol Exports Strong, While DDGS Exports Fall

Cheryl Anderson
By  Cheryl Anderson , DTN Staff Reporter

Exports of U.S. ethanol have been robust so far in 2016, and in fact, grew 7% during December, reaching a 14-month high, according to an article by Ethanol Producer (http://bit.ly/…).

Approximately 87.1 million gallons of ethanol were exported, with a third of that total purchased by China.

But while exports of ethanol have begun the year strong, exports of U.S. dried distillers grains with solubles have fallen, decreasing 19% in February to 800,580 metric tons. Much of the decline was due to decreased purchasing by China, Spain and Turkey, although robust exports to Mexico helped offset those losses to some extent.

The decrease in exports to China was likely caused by the current anti-dumping and countervailing duties investigation against the U.S. that China announced Jan. 12 to see if U.S. agricultural policies in some way create unfair competition.

Chinese buyers may be hesitant to buy U.S. DDGS too far out, in case heavy duties are imposed as a result of the investigation. The drop in Chinese demand has contributed to the decrease in exports, as China has been the largest DDGS export market for the U.S. in recent years. China was the largest importer of U.S. DDGS in 2015, importing nearly 6.3 million metric tons at a value of nearly $1.6 billion.

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

(ES)

P[L1] D[0x0] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[] D[728x170] M[320x75] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[L2] D[728x90] M[320x50] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]

Comments

To comment, please Log In or Join our Community .