US fuel ethanol capacity growth

 The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released its 2020 U.S. Fuel Ethanol Plant Capacity Report, which shows that as of January of this year, U.S. fuel ethanol production capacity totaled 17.3 billion gallons per year, or 1.1 million barrels per day. From January 2019 to January of this year, 3% of available fuel ethanol plant capacity was added, or 470 million gallons per year.

The majority of U.S. fuel ethanol production capacity is located in the Midwest. At the beginning of the year, total Midwest nameplate capacity was 15.9 billion gallons/year (1 million barrels/day), an increase of 3 percent from January 2019 to January this year. The three states with the strongest ethanol production capacity, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois, account for half of the nation's total capacity. In 2019, U.S. fuel ethanol production reached 15.8 billion gallons (1.03 million barrels per day), also marking the fourth consecutive year that fuel ethanol production exceeded 1 million barrels per day. Fuel ethanol production has declined, despite year-over-year increases in production capacity as of January of this year.

U.S. fuel ethanol production fell sharply in late March and April of this year due to the COVID-19 epidemic, which significantly reduced demand for gasoline for automobiles. Nearly all finished motor gasoline sold in the U.S. is blended with 10 percent ethanol (E10), and the decline in gasoline demand has led to a decline in fuel ethanol demand and corresponding ethanol production. In the September 2020 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) report, the EIA expects U.S. fuel ethanol production to average 900,000 barrels per day this year, 13% lower than in 2019. Fuel ethanol production reached a low of 560,000 b/d in April of this year when epidemic blockade measures led to a drop in demand.EIA forecasts that U.S. fuel ethanol production will average 980,000 b/d in December of this year.