Ethanol plants continued to crank up production right through the end of 2011, setting yet another record for the last week of the year after already setting new records for the two weeks prior.

According to the Energy Information Administration, ethanol production averaged 963,000 barrels per day – or 40.45 million gallons daily – for the week ending 12/30/2011. That’s 1,000 barrels more than the record set the previous week.

No doubt that ethanol production this year will be a record, although it will be a couple of months before the actual, official total is calculated. But, based on the weekly reports, production will be around 13.78 billion gallons, which beats the 2010 total of 13.23 billion. However, official monthly data tends to deviate slightly from the weekly data and those numbers for November and December have not yet been released.