"Emergency" E15 Ethanol Announcement TODAY?? How Will it Impact Corn Demand?

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🌽 E15 Decision Coming?
Another summer waiver may drop today, allowing E15 sales and supporting ethanol demand—not permanent, but still bullish short-term.

🛢️ Oil Still Wild
Crude jumped, then pulled back as war headlines flip hourly. No real clarity yet—volatility remains high ⚡

🌾 Fertilizer Concerns Growing
Prices are surging, and many farmers haven’t locked supply. Washington is scrambling for solutions ahead of Friday’s ag event.

🌍 Global Supply Tightening
Russia just restricted exports, and Australia is cutting wheat acres—potential supply issues ahead.

👉 Energy + fertilizer + policy = big market risk (and opportunity)

👍 Like, subscribe, and drop a comment with what you’re seeing locally!

Transcript

Emergency E15

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Morning guys, it's Wednesday, March 25th, 5 23 a.m. Central Time Grain Markets are mixed this morning. Fairly quiet overnight trade. May corn futures down two and three quarters at 459 and three quarters. May soybeans up five and a quarter at 1160 and a quarter. May Chicago wheat down six and three quarters at 583 and a quarter. May Kansas City wheat down six and a half at 597.5. May Spring wheat down five and three quarters at 625 and a half. It sounds as if we've got some ethanol news uh forthcoming today.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

So Reuters reported late yesterday that the Trump administration may allow fuel retailers to continue selling the E15 gasoline blend through summer in order to help curb rising gasoline prices. Similar emergency waiver waivers have been put in place uh every year since 2019, although each was seen as being a temporary measure. While this is not the permanent E-15 legislation sought by farm lobbies, some degree of increased ethanol demand is likely.

Crude/Iran/Ceasefire

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Here's Reuters reporter Jared Renshaw on X. His stuff is usually very, very good and accurate. Trump administration expected to waive summer gasoline blending rules, pave way for summer E-15 sales as soon as Wednesday sources tell me this is Brett Gibbs, who's an oil analyst at Bloomberg. He said EPA fuel announcement uh Wednesday. And he's got a time. He says 11:30 uh Eastern time. I believe this could be an emergency E-15 eligibility announcement, digging and hope to confirm soon. So, as McKenzie mentioned, this is something that has happened basically every summer for the last seven years. And it hasn't really, I mean, you guys tell me, did you see any big spike in corn or ethanol demand during the last seven years? No, you really didn't. This is not the news that the farm lobby wants. The farm lobby wants they want a permanent solution and they want certainty regarding year-round E15 uh sales. And without the permanency and and the certainty, you're not going to see the expansion in the infrastructure that we really need to really expand uh ethanol demand domestically. I've talked before about how even if even if they push through uh year-round nationwide E15 on a permanent basis, I'm kind of skeptical personally around how much additional demand it could bring, partially because uh for two reasons. We're exporting a lot of ethanol. Maybe if we're using more domestically, it just comes out of exports. And and secondly, and maybe more importantly, we have a limited uh ethanol production capacity and we're already grinding corn for ethanol at capacity. So tell me how we're gonna increase corn demand when we're already grinding at capacity and nobody's building new plants. I'm not trying to uh rain on your parade here and tell you this is bad news. It's good news. I just don't see it as being a market mover in either case, in the case of a temporary waiver like we're probably gonna see today the way it sounds, or more permanent legislation.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Oil prices rallied yesterday as Iran denied holding talks with the U.S. to end the war. WTI crude rose 4.8% to settle at 9235 per barrel. The rally was uh excuse me, the rally followed a sharp sell-off on Monday that was triggered by President Trump suggesting a potential resolution to the Middle East conflict. However, Tuesday's rally suggests lingering skepticism over Trump's claim, which Iran has denied. Ongoing attacks on critical energy infrastructure across the Middle East have further heightened concerns that prices will remain elevated even if a deal is reached. Late Tuesday, Trump reportedly sent a 15-point proposal uh to Iran aimed at ending the conflict.

Fertilizer Problems in the US

SPEAKER_00 3:42

So this 15-point proposal is why I believe crude oil futures are down almost$5 this morning. There was language, supposedly, and they didn't make it public, but one of the points in the 15-point plan involved a 30-day ceasefire. And the crude oil market and the trade perceived this as being bearish, crude, friendly stocks, the stock market's higher this morning. But Iran came back and said, Yeah, we're rejecting this. We haven't really talked to you. I think I think one of the quotes from one of the leaders is that the U.S. is negotiating with itself because Iran is not involved in the talks. And there was a whole bunch of uh escalation in military activity just in the last 12 hours. Israeli defense forces launched a massive wave of airstrikes targeting terror infrastructure in the Iranian capital. Iran launched its 80th, 80th wave of missiles at Israel overnight. So it doesn't appear as if this is over. Maybe, maybe we're headed in that direction, maybe we're not. I don't think anybody really knows. In any case, crude oil prices, I mean, yeah, we're off a little bit here this morning. But grand scheme of things, you're holding together here at um elevated levels and holding together fairly well. If you go down below that low from uh that would have been Monday, 8437 in this May WTI, maybe got some additional downside here, but these are still very much uh elevated price levels.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Some U.S. lawmakers believe higher fertilizer prices could be catastrophic for U.S. farmers. According to U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, uh, who recently traveled across Iowa, roughly 45% of farmers in the state have not yet booked their fertilizer needs. Feenstra and other lawmakers are expected to meet with the Trump administration on Friday uh during a White House event celebrating agriculture to discuss potential measures to ease prices. Feenstra also emphasized the need for the DOJ to continue investigating rising input costs across the farm sector.

Russia Tightens Fertilizer Exports

SPEAKER_00 5:35

There's also some chatter and some push for another farm aid package because of what's going on with the fertilizer situation. And I don't know if anything's gonna come of that. Uh, the number that was posted in this article, 45% of farmers in Iowa have not yet booked their fertilizer needs. I believe the number is much less than that, based on what I've heard. We've got a very good video uh coming out for our premium crowd tomorrow with my friend Chris Barron from AgBee Solutions, and uh he has some very specific statistics uh based on data from his customer base about fertilizer, who has what bought, um, that sort of thing. At the Gulf, uh urea is 623, and I think it's actually a little bit higher than that, but retail prices are more important to you guys. Illinois retail price based on the March 20th, which I believe was last Friday, the USDA uh Illinois production cost report was a range. Urea was a range of 780 to 875 with the average at 822 and a half, just off the charts. That's up 231 and a half just in the last two weeks, because this is a a bi-weekly report, I believe. So um there's there's no relief at all, and and prices continue to move higher uh at the Gulf and also at the retail level. If you guys have fertilizer price quotes, if you have urea quotes from your neighborhood, um drop them in the YouTube comments. I'd love to see what what's being quoted. Uh, and I think it's gonna be a little bit different regionally. There's gonna be higher and lower prices depending on the region and availability. If you got nothing, if they're not, they got nothing for sale, uh let us know that also.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

A bit more on fertilizer. Russia is tightening fertilizer exports. The nation has temporarily suspended ammonium nitrate exports from March 21st through April 21st. The move is intended to prioritize domestic supply as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to constrain global fertilizer supplies. Russia is the world's second largest fertilizer producer, accounting for roughly 20% of global trade. The Russia-Ukraine war has also reduced Russia's production capacity with Ukrainian drone attacks targeting several facilities.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, Russia is a big exporter of all the major fertilizer products, your NPK, 17% of potassium, uh 16% of nitrogen, 13% of global phosphorus exports. It's a big deal. So this whole thing is kind of like a domino effect. You know, countries are trying to look out for their own best interests, but it's going to come at the expense of other countries who need the fertilizer who can't get it.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

If you guys have not checked out our premium content, you sure need to do so. Joe, can you tell our viewers about yesterday's premium video?

Australia Fertilizer Problems

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Pete Meyer was on yesterday. What do Pete's fund friends think? So in his prior career, Pete Meyer was an analyst at SP Global and he worked with the people that we call the funds. And uh in our little rundown yesterday, one of my questions was, Pete, I know you still talk to the guys that that are on the fund desks. What do they think about this? I also thought Pete's thoughts on fertilizer were really, really interesting and and great, and some stuff that we had not considered with regard to who exactly is going to be impacted by the higher fertilizer prices and what it could mean for uh price potential in these markets long term. Uh, this is like a 35-minute video we did with Pete, but it was it was really, really good because he hadn't been on in a couple weeks and uh he has Pete has is very opinionated and has a lot of thoughts on a lot of things. If you guys want to see the premium stuff, go to standardgrain.com. You can sign up this morning. This is a$50 per month subscription. You can cancel at any time. There's no other fee, no other obligation. Nobody will try to sell you anything else. If you are the decision maker in your farm operation, this subscription is for you. We talk about everything from grain marketing to specific cash grain marketing recommendations, crop insurance, weather, um, anything you can think of. I mean, financing, interest rates, everything. So um, if you guys are not paying for the premium deal, you should be uh give that deal a shot this morning, guys.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Australian farmers are scaling back wheat acreage amid growing concerns over global fertilizer supplies tied to the conflict in the Middle East. Farmers are also pivoting away from wheat due to a global oversupply that has weighed on prices. Many are turning to alternative crops such as canola and barley, which require less fertilizer and offer better returns. Given Australia's role as a major uh global wheat exporter, the reduction in planted acreage is expected to impact supplies later this year and into 2027.

RVO News and Iran

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Australia imports most of its fertilizer from three places Morocco, China, and Saudi Arabia. China has significantly tightened its restrictions on fertilizer exports amid the Iran conflict. Uh, Saudi exports are significantly constrained due to the Strait of Hormoes. Uh, same with Morocco. So um, they've got problems. Here's urea prices in the Middle East, which are approaching$800 a ton, and that's like a spot price of retail's probably much, much higher than that. So this whole fertilizer thing is going to, even if, even if this war conflict, whatever you want to call it, if it ends tomorrow, I still think there's going to be some lingering impacts on global crop production, whether it's Australia or Brazil or the United States or wherever, because the supply chain's been disrupted for uh several weeks now.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

The conflict in the Middle East is not expected to affect U.S. biofuel blending quotas. The Trump administration is expected to announce the new quotas this week, potentially during the celebration of agriculture event at the White House on Friday. The mandates are not expected to differ from the proposal issued before the onset of the Iran War. Meanwhile, Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday that the administration is weighing options to address rising fertilizer costs. One measure being considered is pausing tariffs on Moroccan phosphate imports. Rollins also stated uh that the administration remains committed to putting U.S. agriculture first, emphasizing that farm security is a matter of national security.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

So it's been well advertised that there's going to be some RVO stuff at this celebration of agriculture, maybe, maybe the morning of. I was I read something that said maybe it'll be before. I don't know exactly what's going to happen. Um, the question maybe is should the RVO numbers be um affected uh positively? Maybe they should move in a different direction or be even higher because of what's happening with um crude oil and gasoline prices and that sort of thing. But it sounds like they're gonna be as previously advertised or leaked. I don't know that this is gonna be fresh news by the time that it's uh released. But I'll tell you what, there's been some strength, and look at the markets this morning. Soybeans are up. Um, I don't know if that has to do with with RVO optimism. It feels like we've traded that headline so many times, but uh they've there's been some strength in soybeans that you haven't seen in corn on some of these days where there's uh some kind of RVO stuff uh floating around. What did cattle do yesterday?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Uh cattle futures were mostly higher. Live cattle were five cents lower to 65 cents higher. Feeder saw gains ranging from a buck 47 up to 235, boxed beef prices were slightly higher. Choice was up 78 cents at 399.91, and select was up 67 cents at 394.50.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

SP's up 50 points. That's about uh eight tenths of a percentage point. The Dow's up 370, treasuries are higher, US dollars off just a little bit. Crude oil is down$4.60 in the May WTI 87.76 last trade. Have a great day, guys. We'll be back Thursday.