E15: It is 9 April; by 1 May terminals that blend gasoline with ethanol need to be in compliance with summer-grade gasoline specifications that are effective on 1 June. The ethanol industry has pressed EPA for another emergency waiver for year-round E15 use in the summer of 2024. EPA did approve an E15 waiver for eight midwestern states, but that doesn’t go into effect until 2025. Further, that waiver is for states which produce 76 percent of the U.S. ethanol supply but use only 35 percent. The national waiver is much more significant in terms of demand. For the last two years there has been a nationwide waiver, announced at the “11th hour” on 28 April in 2022 and 29 April in 2023. Those benchmark dates are less than three...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.