The companies Toyota Tsusho, Odebrechet and Queiroz Galvão signed last Friday a deal whereby they become part of a joint venture being pursued by state-run Brazilian petrol agency, Petrobras, and the Japanese Itochu Corporation. The initiative aims at assessing the potential for the production of biofuels in the outback of the northeastern states of Pernambuco and Bahia, a region called Canal do Sertão Pernambucano.
Petrobras and Itochu signed the memorandum on June, 08. It aims at assessing the production potential of bioethanol, biodiesel and bioelectricity from sugar cane and the project will study the energy potential of sugar cane and oily plants growing in the area and will also encompass infrastructure and logistics aimed at exports to Japanese and other international markets. Petrobras intends to export 3.5 billion litres of ethanol annually to Japan, starting in 2011, and is promoting dozens of JV biofuel projects in Brazil worth US$8 billion.
According to Petrobras, the move can bring benefits from the growing international biofuel market to the semi-arid Brazilian region, with economic, social and environmental gains.
