Ethanol Ethanol production margins continue to experience a counter-seasonal surge, with the energy market rally driving the bulk of the move. Prior to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, U.S. ethanol margins were already trending above year-ago levels by $0.10-0.20/gallon. The war and the subsequent rally in energy values rapidly changed that, and margins last week were hovering near levels typically reserved for early autumn. Margins last week averaged $1.34/gallon, per USDA data, with gains in ethanol values (which broke $2/gallon for the first time since September 2025), corn oil, and DDGS all contributing to the enhanced profitability. The gains in product and co-product values have far outpaced increases in...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.