The 24-hour capacity of U.S. mills in the second quarter came to 1,539,000 cwts, the same as in the first quarter and down 5,000 from a year back. Rate of grind averaged 84.7% of six-day grind, the slowest for any quarter since April-June 2005 when it was 83.7%.
Semolina production in the second quarter aggregated 8,180,000 cwts, up 8.1% from 7,567,000 a year ago.
Wheat flour output in the first half of 2011, or January-June, totaled 200,337,000 cwts, down 1.8% from 204,011,000 in the same 2010 period. It was the smallest since the first half of 2006 when output was 196,072,000.
Durum semolina output in January-June 2011 totaled 16,773,000 cwts, up 6.1% from 15,807,000 in 2010. Semolina output was the largest for the first half since 1994 when it was 16,894,000, the high.
