ITALIAN FIRMS TO INVEST IN BRAZIL BIODIESEL PLANTS
03.28.07 - Leído 184 veces. Enviar esta notaItalian companies will invest US$480 million to build four biodiesel refineries in Brazil, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Monday during a visit to spur commerce between the countries
SAO PAULO, Brazil; March 28, 2007.- The agreement is expected to be ratified by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday, when he meets his Italian counterpart, the head of the Sao Paulo Industry Federation (Fiesp), Paulo Skaf said, after meeting with Prodi.
Europe is trying to integrate more renewable fuels into its energy matrix but it lacks to available agricultural area to produce large quantities of vegetable oils or other feedstocks for biodiesel or ethanol.
“We would like to take part in what is being done in Brazil in this area,” Prodi said at Fiesp.
Brazil has the most advanced biofuels market in the world, with over 30,000 filling stations that sell pure ethanol or 20-25 percent mixed with gasoline. The country is about to make a 2 percent biodiesel blend mandatory in all commercial diesel beginning in 2008.
Earlier on Monday, Prodi said that Brazil’s state-run oil and gas company Petrobras and Italy’s Eni will announce shortly a joint venture to produce ethanol in Africa.
Brazil’s biofuels market has become one of the hot targets for domestic and foreign investment over the past year or two.
It has drawn direct investment from big players such as billionaire philanthropist George Soros, Sun Microsystems Inc.’s founder Vinod Khosla, supermarket mogul Ron Burkle, US investment company Kidd & Co and the co-founder of AOL Steve Case.
Japan’s Mitsui and Mitsubishi and Chinese ethanol producers have also recently announced investments in production on Brazil’s biofuels market.
(Reuters)
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