FTC’s 2023 Report on Ethanol Market Concentration shows unlikely price coordination nationwide

In Washington, the Federal Trade Commission has issued its 2023 Report on Ethanol Market Concentration. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directs the Commission to perform an annual review of market concentration in the ethanol production industry “to determine whether there is sufficient competition among industry participants to avoid price-setting and other anticompetitive behavior.”

As in prior years, the 2023 report concludes that “[t]he level of concentration and large number of market participants in the U.S. ethanol production industry continue to suggest that the exercise of market power to set prices, or coordinate on price or output levels, is unlikely on a nationwide basis.”

The Commission vote to approve the report was 3-0.