For the first month of 2018, the amount of corn used to make ethanol in the U.S. was down two percent from December 2017 but up one percent from January 2017, according to the latest USDA Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production report.

Corn use for fuel alcohol totaled 476 million bushels in January 2018 with dry milling fuel production and wet milling fuel production at 90.6 percent and 9.4 percent respectively.

The World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate out for this month is forecasting a smaller corn crop this year with less acres but higher yields. Corn used to produce ethanol is raised 50 million bushels to 5.575 billion based on the most recent data from the Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production report and pace of weekly ethanol production during February, as indicated by Energy Information Administration data.

Weekly ethanol production this year is maintaining at just over a million barrels per day, according to the latest Energy Information Agency (EIA) data analyzed by the Renewable Fuels Association.

For the last week of February, ethanol production averaged 1.057 million barrels per day, or 44.39 million gallons daily, up 12,000 b/d from the week before. The four-week average for ethanol production was unchanged at 1.046 million b/d for an annualized rate of 16.04 billion gallons.