Poet becomes top worldwide fuel ethanol producer

Reuters is reporting that Poet has overtaken the grain merchant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in global fuel ethanol production.

While both companies had production capacities around 1.8 billion gallons previously, Poet has grown its capacity to 1.9 billion and ADM has reduced to 1.6 billion.

The wire service says that the change reflects the companies’ diverging strategies to address disappointing profits, a supply glut and the oil lobby’s push against the Renewable Fuel Standard. ADM is reducing its exposure to the ethanol market while Poet is growing to secure better profits through efficiency and scale.

According to the US’ Energy Information Agency (EIA), America exported record amounts of fuel ethanol in 2017 with nearly 1.4 billion gallons (more than 6.3 billion litres). This surpassed the previous record of 1.2 billion gallons (over 5.4 billion litres) set in 2011. The agency put the growth in exports down to increases in corn and ethanol production outpacing domestic consumption.

The EIA rated the US’ total ethanol production capacity in 2017 at over 15.5 billion gallons (70.4 billion litres).

See the original Reuters report here.