Ethanol crush margin slides to three-week low as maintenance period ends

In Illinois, Platts reports that the crush margin for corn-based ethanol fell to three-week lows of 5.94 cents/gal Friday with an eye on ethanol production coming back online over the next few weeks as maintenance season comes to an end. Dry weather in Brazil has led to higher corn futures after concerns that continued dryness may negatively impact yields.  With production offline, production volumes had slowed and in turn helped to support crush margins but those hey days are over.