When I look at the WASDE report from September of 14 through December 15, I only see a range of 2-3% through that time period for corn consumption for ethanol for the 14/15 marketing year 

is that what you are calling "big", or am I missing something?? 

No I'm looking at the 2011/2012 drought.. I believe they went back and changed some later.. but I COULD be wrong...  It's always frustrating to "thunk" your table is correct and look at YoY changes only to realize that some of the numbers in the data set were revised.

This is pretty nebulous..  Tara is correct that a 2.75 conversion is pretty weak at the plant level.. However the WASDE is flying over at 30,000 feet.. and I'm not sure they got it pegged either.. within 20..30 myn bushels.. "good enough."  When they are dealing with matching the stocks reports.. with Crop Sizes.. and Census exports...

for example.. Mar Stocks comes in low.. it wasn't exports.. livestock numbers were down.. can't be that.. "must be ethanol".. and down the road they go..

There are some PRETTY BIG discrepancies.. well.. take 2012 for example.. we supposedly used 13.22 byn gallons of ethanol between domestic and exports..  Setting aside for the moment just how much of that came out of Storage..??  (Honestly I need to go back and back check that data..)  As well as RIN's.. (boy howdie??).. whatever that does to anything..??

Anywho.. 13.22 / 2.75 would say that we USED.. 4.81 byn bushels.. from somewhere.. the WASDE only has corn at 4.333 and Sorghum (assuming ALL of the F,S& I was ethanol.. which it wasn't..) 0.095 = 4.428.. so where did the OTHER 382 myn bushels come from?

odds are.. everything got cleaned out.. ethanol storage.. corn bins.. everything.. so do we have it EXACTLY PEGGED on how it all went down???

Was the crop size bigger and ethanol understated?
Did it come out of ethanol storage?
Is the Ethanol usage numbers correct?

???

somethings off..

Yes the conversion.. 2.75 number could be higher.. and I believe WASDE changed that about a year ago...??  aka Tara...

Then you look at 2013.. when it flips.. 5.194 byn ground according to WASDE vs.. 4.83 needed... and now you are LONG 360 myn bushels..

Now again.. ONE BIG factor is that we are comparing calendar year Jan 1st to Dec 30th vs Crop year Sept 1st to Aug 31st..

... and maybe THAT explains it.. ??  could be..??  Probably most of it..

but we ought to be able to get closer than this..

which is my point.

I thunk that some who have bought into the higher conversions could get surprised..?? as we are rolling along pretty good here.. on pumping bushels through.. with now some headed to exports.. aka to possibly China.. which.. well.. we all know how they like our beans.. so.. "could be a big deal" at some point.

I honestly think the conversion factor.. yes probably bigger than 2.75.. but probably bounces around a little depending upon the quality of the crop... Some heavier test weighted crops.. aka Irrigated Corn in Kansas at 63 lbs test weight.. is probably gonna convert better then dryland sorghum.. at 52 lbs...  for example.

just to name one such factor..

but sorghum has been cheaper so they can risk that for awhile... and there's also some heavy sorghum also.. 60 lbs etc.. but it's certainly LOWER than the irrigated corn was going to be.. by probably 3,4 or 5 lbs.. etc..

and so forth.

Sorry to add confusion.. I'll clean my table up later.. don't have time now..  

You got anything to add? 

edit add:  the thing that I believe I need to keep reminding myself and everyone else is that we are looking at EIA data.. WASDE data.. Census data.. and it doesn't ALWAYS MESH..  "How many bananas where in that last load of Watermelons?"  It Just doesn't add up...  but it should..

Missing a couple hundred myn bushels of grain.. when you consider that a typical plant can go from 85% capacity to 125% by leaning into it...  We got the capacity to burn through an extra 400..500.. myn bushels before anyone could really catch it..

I can tell ya.. we're humming along pretty well down here...  I fully expect sorghum to trade at a premium to corn soon...  Yes a major company is down right now.. however, the rest of the plants can MORE than make up for that by just cracking the throttle open.. Ours routinely runs at 125% capacity during the hammer down periods... We are getting better at making her sing... ironing out all the little hickup's.. and so forth.. also with the added storage.. and so far not much ice.. it's been GO BABY GO!!!

fwiw.. or.. "I could be wrong."

but those are the numbers on the back of my envelope. 

PS.. the eastern Kansas Grain is leaking down into Arkansas because the Normal Illinois flow is headed east.. to the Eastern Cornbelt.. somewhat odd and unusual.. Yes we have grain out here.. given the current outlook.. What we got is what we got.. as normal backstoppers are headed elsewhere...  

;-)