#Ethanol Breaking Through Blend Wall

Cindy Zimmerman

car-wallThe average amount of ethanol in the nation’s gasoline supply hit a new record last week of 10.4 percent, just breaking through the 10% blend wall for the second time in a month, according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The EIA Weekly Supply Estimate shows that an average of 8.798 million barrels per day (mbpd) of gasoline were supplied to the market last week, and ethanol blending in that fuel averaged 0.915 mbpd, meaning gasoline contained an average of 10.4 percent ethanol, beating the previous record of 10.21 percent three weeks earlier. EIA’s October Short-term Energy Outlook projected that gasoline consumed in 2016 will contain an average of 10.1 percent ethanol, up from 9.9 percent last year.

“This clearly shows that there’s no reason for the administration to roll back the 2017 RFS conventional biofuel blending levels required by the statute,” said Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President and CEO Bob Dinneen President and CEO Bob Dinneen. “It also shows that supporters of legislative proposals to cap ethanol content at 9.7 percent are completely out of touch with what is really happening in the marketplace.”

In September, RFA ran ads showing that nearly half of the states in the U.S. had already blown by the 10.0 percent threshold as early as 2014.

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