Light disappointment continues for ethanol production.

Monday's monthly Grain Crushings report detailed corn usage for the month of May. This wraps up usage for the first three quarters of this marketing year, September - May at 3.837 billion bushels. To meet USDA's current 5.450 billion whole-year goal this fourth quarter needs to run 1.384 billion, +3.3% from last year. Given the fact this year's production efficiency is lower than last year we estimate actual ethanol production only needs to run +2.0% from last year in this quarter. That is our goal for these weekly ethanol reports in Q4, +2.0%.

Today's weekly ethanol production report covered the last week of June. At 1.064 million barrels per day it was +0.4% from last year. Production in all of June has been disappointing, -0.9% to +0.5% each week. It is likely we will miss USDA's current whole-year corn for ethanol goal. For the coming July 12 WASDE we expect USDA to leave their view unchanged.

Implied gasoline usage last week was -1.3% from last year. Since September 1, the start of the corn marketing year, usage has run -0.4% from last year.

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