By Oliver Griffin
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Ethanol producer Inpasa will focus on driving demand in regions like Brazil’s North and Northeast as it looks to decentralize the supply of the biofuel, the company’s vice president of trading Gustavo Mariano Oliveira said.
While ethanol produced from sugarcane has long dominated biofuel production and use in Brazil’s most developed Southeast region, including in the main fuel-consuming state of Sao Paulo, Inpasa mostly produces ethanol from corn in central Brazil.
Corn is fueling ethanol’s output increase even as sugarcane-based fuel growth stagnates. According to Brazil’s government, corn-based ethanol is expected to grow by more than 60% between 2025 and 2035 to 16.3 billion liters.
“It’s precisely about decentralizing Brazil’s ethanol supply hubs and bringing as much biofuel as possible into the … consumption cycle for light engines in Brazil,” Oliveira said in an interview on Tuesday.
At the end of last month, Inpasa said it would team up with agricultural group Amaggi, a leading Brazilian grain processor and exporter, to build at least three corn ethanol plants in the state of Mato Grosso.
However, Inpasa is not relying just on corn to fuel ethanol’s expansion to Brazil’s North and Northeast, Oliveira said, adding that sorghum is already being used by the company.
Sorghum’s more resilient nature makes it a suitable alternative in regions with greater fluctuations in climate, he added.
“It’s a complementary idea, mainly based in regions where you have a different climatic diversity than the climatic stability you have in the Brazilian Central-West,” he said.
Inpasa’s operations in Paraguay, where it first started with corn ethanol production, have managed to achieve greenhouse gas savings of 92%, making its ethanol an attractive option for buyers looking for greener fuel options, Oliveira said.
“I believe we’ll export a lot of ethanol from Brazil, not just (from) corn, but sugarcane as well,” he said. “South American ethanol should be increasingly popular in other global markets.”
(Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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