Oil industry is only interested in ethanol to the extent that they need it as an additive/octane booster to replace MTBE.
Complete list of ethanol plants with company ownership and links to each company
the 5 largest producers (below) together produce about 4.3% of all the ethanol produced. IOW it is not a concentrated industry.
http://farmindustrynews.com/ethanol/5-largest-ethanol-producers
ADM - This Decatur, Ill.-based grain and oilseed processor produces 1.75 billion gal./yr. It operates seven ethanol production plants. Visit www.adm.com.
Poet - Headquartered in Sioux Falls, S.D., Poet produces 1.6 billion gal./yr. at 27 production plants. Visit www.poet.com.
Valero Energy Corporation - This company produces 1.2 billion gal./yr. at 10 production plants. It is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Visit www.valero.com.
Green Plains Renewable Energy - Headquartered in Omaha, Neb., Green Plains produces 740 million gal./yr. at different production plants. Visit www.gpreinc.com.
Flint Hills Resources LP - This Wichita, Kan., company produces 440 million gal./yr. at four production plants. Visit www.fhr.com.
re: "Tax Payer takes it in the shorts again" the ethanol being sold over the last several years, say from 2009 onward has lowered gas prices estimated from a minimumof 10% to max of 30% (depends on estimator) which saved consumers, many billions of dollars per year (from about 2009 onward) in lower gas prices but also lower prices for everything which uses oil as a raw material, or incurs costs for transportation from raw material to suppliers to final products to retailers. IF you are referring to the Ethanol Excise tax credit to get ethanol up and running as an industry, the amount saved on lower prices of everything from gasoline to all the other products that paid less for oil as a raw material or an expense for transportation is many times greater than the excise tax credit (which ended as of Dec 31, 2011). Tax breaks for the oil industry are still going strong.
Historically, West Texas Intermediate Oil (called intermediate because it had less sulfer than Oil from around the world, for pricing purposes, called North Sea Brent) for decades sold at a premium to NSB from about 6% to 10-12% - on average about 8%. Then around 2005, when ethanol started being produced in significant volume the Price premium of WTI started shrinking. By mid 2011 the WTI price was as much as 22% BELOW North Sea Brent. (note that the uptick in domestic oil production didn't really get started until late 2011 and into 2012). By 2010 ethanol was reducing oil consumption to produce gasoline by about 10%. The price swing of WTI relative to NSB (before the domestic oil field production started increasing) was roughly 20% to 24% downward. Note that domestic ethanol production reduced demand for NOrth Sea Brent in the U.S. and so lowered NSB price too. Also, ethanol production was increasing all around the World and this contributed to North Sea Brent price going down too.
This of course, isn't even addressing the value of reduced GHG emissions from use of ethanol in cars and light trucks.
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