The latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate released this week increased 2012-13 year-ending corn stocks and corn use for ethanol.

Domestic corn use for 2012/13 is projected 100 million bushels lower as a 50-million-bushel increase in corn used to produce ethanol partly offsets the lower projection for feed and residual disappearance. Larger-than-expected March
1 corn supplies, lower corn prices, and favorable margins for producing and blending ethanol limit the expected year-to-year decline in ethanol production during the second half of the marketing year (March-August).

The report also projects higher world corn production, increasing 1.5 million tons for Brazil, 1.4 million tons for Europe with upward revisions to production in Spain, Hungary, and Poland and a bit more for Russia on the final government estimate.