USDA's ethanol plant report shows good corn use in March.

USDA reported corn used in the nation's ethanol plants in March at 469 million bushels. This was a sharp clip at +7.5% from last year. This brings the September - March corn use to 3.187 billion. That would be +6.8%. We are currently ahead of USDA's whole-year goal of 5.400 billion bushels. That would require the rest of the year to run only +1.0%. That sounds like an easy target but keep in mind two of the last three weeks of ethanol production were below that amount.

We will also disclose something else about this situation. Our efficiency levels, ethanol produced from one bushel of corn, are down about 1% this year. That means low looking ethanol production, since it is less efficient this year, will have larger corn use than it appears.

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