Ethanol surge continues, marketers call alcohol pricing 'pornographic'

摘要

The irony in the length of President Bush's state-of-the-union speech wasn't missed in downstream markets. He spoke for precisely 51 minutes, and his talk detailed an initiative that will emphasize ethanol as a key solution to high fuel prices. The implication: ethanol will move the country closer to oil independence. "He devoted one minute of the speech for every penny per gal in federal subsidies for ethanol," observed one Northeast marketer, who added wryly that those subsidies contribute about a third of the $60/bbl or so profit windfall that ethanol producers have recently collected. The cost of manufacturing ethanol is estimated to be about $1.15/gal at Midwestern plants.