By Michael Hirtzer
Feb 19 (Reuters) – Use of U.S. corn in ethanol production
increased 5 percent in December while sorghum use for biofuel
tumbled 57 percent from the previous month, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture said in a new monthly report on Thursday.
The so-called Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production
report was the first in a suite of monthly reports that will be
launched this year, with flour milling and cotton warehouse
stock reports coming out in May followed by a soybean crushings
report in August. Some of the reports were discontinued in 2011
due to budget cuts.
The grain report details use of corn in biofuel and beverage
alcohol as well as production of “co-products” such as
distillers dried grains (DDGs), corn gluten feed and corn oil.
The dataset is valued by analysts, who can use it to predict
how the government will forecast supply and demand in separate
monthly reports issued by the World Agriculture Outlook Board
that typically move grains futures markets.
“It gives us a little more transparency for what’s becoming
the largest demand category (for corn),” said Jefferies Bache
analyst Shawn McCambridge.
Ethanol accounts for more than a third of U.S. corn use,
with feed, export and food accounting for the remainder.
In December, the new report showed 510.1 million bushels of
corn were used in dry and wet corn milling for fuel and beverage
alcohol. That is up from 485.1 million bushels in November and
476.5 million bushels in October.
Production of DDGs (including solubles) jumped 8 percent in
December to 1.92 million tons.
Sorghum use for ethanol fell sharply as record exports of
the feed grain to China resulted in a price spike that made it
uneconomical for use in biofuel production. In December, 889,000
cwt of sorghum (about 1.59 million bushels) was used in ethanol
production, down from 2.07 million cwt in November, USDA said.
The next report, including data for January, will be
released on March 2.
(Reporting by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago; Editing by Marguerita
Choy)