Looking at the ethanol sector, it is the classic good news/bad news scenario with the former coming in the short term and the latter occurring over the next year or so.Good NewsFirst, corn prices remain low, and that is helping sustain margins for ethanol mills as well as boost production. Through the week ending 11 August, output was averaging 1.02 million barrels per day, which equates to 15.7 billion gallons of ethanol. For reference, last year’s total production was 15.33 billion gallons.Second, gasoline production by U.S. refineries has been above the five-year average and near record levels for the first half of 2017. For the week ending 21 April 2017, U.S. refinery runs exceeded 17.5 million barrels/day for the first time since the U...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.