Ethanol Blog

Buyers of dried distillers grains seemed to back off purchases in the past week as they waited for the result of Friday's USDA Crop Production Report. The report had not been published for two months due to the recent government shutdown.

The hesitant buying caused the DTN weekly DDG spot price average to fall $2 per ton in the past week, from $207 per ton last week to $205 this week.

This is the third consecutive week that the average has decreased, falling from $208 per ton Oct. 25 to $205 per ton this week. The last time the average was at $205 per ton was in late March of 2012. The average has hovered between $205 and $208 per ton for the past six weeks.

Of the 30 Midwestern locations DTN collects prices from, 17 locations reported their prices remained unchanged since last week and 13 locations said their prices had decreased between $3 and $10 per ton.

Merchandisers told DTN that the DDG market has been slow for the past week, as buyers seemed to wait until Friday's report came out, in case the report pushed DDG prices up or down.

The value of DDG relative to corn this week was at about 136.50%, while DDG's value relative to soybean meal was at about 50.77%.

The cost per unit of protein for DDG was $8.20 this week, compared to the cost per unit of protein for soybean meal at $8.50.

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

(ES)

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