Brazilian Ethanol Gets Japanese Boost
Greentech Media:
Brazil is getting a big boost from new investments aimed at bringing its ethanol to Japan, even as the ongoing worldwide economic slowdown and deepening credit crisis threatens to delay biofuel projects.
Itochu, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Toyota are planning to invest about $485 million in Brazilian ethanol plants in the third quarter of this year, reported New Energy Finance.
That’s out of the roughly $600 million that Japanese companies have invested in Brazilian ethanol plants since 2007, indicating a big boost in Japan’s interest to secure ethanol for its transportation fuel needs, said Stephan Nielsen, New Energy Finance analyst in São Paulo, Brazil.
Japan now holds what Nielsen called a “relatively unimpressive” goal of bringing 860 million liters (227 million gallons) of ethanol, or roughly 1 percent of the nations transportation fuel needs, into the country by 2010. But the country could be poised to increase the goal. “The amounts these Japanese trading companies are investing at the moment indicate that something beyond this 860 million liter target will be put on the table soon,” Nielsen said.
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