Brazil’s Vale plans Amazon biofuel plant

Reuters, 06/24/2012

(Reuters) – Brazilian miner Vale SA is planning to build the world’s largest single processing plant to turn palm oil into biofuel by 2015 in a bid to cut its vast fuel costs and to develop the Amazon region, the Financial Times said on Monday.

Under the project, which will cost more than $500 million, Vale has acquired an area of cleared land in the Amazon rainforest bigger than London. The biodiesel will be used to run the company’s machinery, ships, trains and trucks, the paper reported.

Vale opened its first palm oil factory this month in Brazil’s Amazonian state of Para and will sell its output to food producers in the market until it the processing plant is completed, Eduardo Ieda, head of the miner’s biodiesel company Biopalma was quoted as saying.

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US rules boost imports of Brazilian ethanol

Ed Crooks – FT, 04/09/2012

US imports of ethanol from Brazil have risen to their highest since 2008 as a result of environmental regulations that favour Brazilian fuels produced from sugar over US product made from corn.

The US exports ethanol to Brazil as well as importing it, and US industry participants have raised concerns that an almost identical product, albeit made from different feedstocks, is traveling thousands of miles in both directions.

Tightening supplies bolster sojabean prices BlueGold hedge fund liquidates portfolio Seasonal demand decline hits crude US hurricane forecast favours oil bears Bob Dinneen, the president of the Renewable Fuels Association, the industry group, said: “We have the bizarre situation where we are exporting to them while they are exporting to us. It’s inefficient.”

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‘Father of ethanol’, Mario Garnero cheers US decision to lift tariffs on Brazilian sugarcane biofuels

PR Newswire/Comtex/MarketWatch, 01/09/2012

Mario Garnero, Chairman of Brasilinvest, Brazil’s pioneer merchant bank, stated during a private conference with investors in Paris that the recent decision by US lawmakers not to renew import tariffs that for over 3 decades protected corn ethanol from Brazilian competition is a “milestone of historical proportions to the good of the two largest economies in the Hemisphere. It clears the way to a higher level of trade between the US and Brazil. And is a firm step towards commoditizing ethanol — a mighty push for greener energy in all quarters.”

Garnero’s comments to investors emphasize Brazil’s performance in biofuels, offshore and deep-water oil reserves, as a launch pad to the country’s new position in global affairs. Brazil has been recently called by Garnero a “Powerhouse Nation”, a concept he champions to replace the outdated notion of the country as simply an “emerging market.”

The liberalization of Brazilian ethanol is a remarkable personal victory for Mario Garnero. An early-adopter of biofuels since he chaired Brazil’s Automakers Association in the 1980s, Garnero paved the way for auto producers to turn out ethanol fueled vehicles when the country experienced harsh oil shortages.

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Advances in bioenergy

FAPESP, 10/25/2011

A discussion of recent scientific and technological advances and the global outlook for sustainable production of biofuels was the topic of the afternoon of October 25^th at the symposium FAPESP Week, which wraps up this Wednesday in Washington, DC.

Glaucia Souza from the Chemistry Institute of the Universidade de São Paulo presented the results of the FAPESP Program for Research on Bioenergy, of which she is a coordinating member.  The Program’s objective is to integrate laboratory and company research and development activities to promote the advance of knowledge and its use in the sustainable production of energy from sugarcane ethanol.

In her presentation, Souza discussed the organization and the program’s divisions in addition to the objectives and results of some of the 56 research projects underway.  She noted the capacity and resistance of the current crops for producing food and energy at compatible costs, and the positive energy balance and low greenhouse gas emissions from current varieties of sugarcane.

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U.S. ethanol imports could temper rising prices

João Carvalho-Business News America, 01/25/10

Imported corn-based ethanol from the US could help ease ethanol prices in Brazil that have been rising because of increasing demand and heavy rains that have delayed the sugarcane harvest, Julio Maria Borges, a director at sugar and ethanol industry consultancy Job Economia e Planejamento, told BNamericas.

“Importing ethanol from the US makes sense from the commercial point of view as the American corn-based ethanol, at the moment, is US$300/m3 cheaper than ethanol produced from Brazilian sugarcane,” Borges said.

Ethanol prices in Brazil have risen 20% in the last five months, according to state news agency Agência Brasil, and some consumers in Brazil are already starting to turn to cheaper gasoline.

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Brazil opens world’s first ethanol-fired power plant

Denise Luna-Reuters, 01/19/10

Brazil on Tuesday opened the world’s first ethanol-fueled power plant in an effort by the South American biofuels giant to increase the global use of ethanol and boost its clean power generation.

State-run oil giant Petrobras (PETR4.SA)(PBR.N) and General Electric Co (GE.N), which helped design the plant, are betting that increased use of ethanol generation by green-conscious countries will boost demand for the product.

Brazil, the top global ethanol exporter, is already in talks with Japan to develop biofuels power generation there.

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