The U.S. ethanol industry is sitting much more favorably compared to a year ago when demand was sliced in half. Even though the economy is on the mend, levels haven’t quite bounced back to pre-pandemic levels.
“Until we open everything back up and let people go back to their offices and work, we’re still going to see a decrease in the amount of fuel that’s consumed, plus the amount of ethanol,” said Jim Zook, executive director of the Michigan Corn Growers Association. “We are definitely seeing increases of over what we [saw] a year ago.
There’s still a long way to go because domestic use of ethanol reached its peak in 2018.
“Because of fuel efficiencies and granting of small refinery waivers the EPA granted during the last administration, we haven’t seen an increase in ethanol consumption,” said Zook.
Four of Michigan’s five ethanol plants are running at nameplate capacity. According to the latest weekly data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), ethanol production was up 58.7 percent above year ago levels. Exports have been strong as well.
“We look for ethanol exports to be our saving grace because many of the other countries that don’t have the air quality that we do—our understanding of how ethanol in their gasoline can actually clean up their air emissions and air quality,” said Zook. “Our efforts are really going around, trying to promote that and trying to do whatever we can to make sure that goes through.”
After a pre-pandemic trade mission to India last year, Zook added that there has been an increase of exports to India. He said those building those relationships help create demand for corn products.
