Braskem expects to become the first commercial-scale producer of polyethylene made from a renewable source when a plant in Brazil begins producing the building block resin used in plastics at the Triunfo plant, said Leonora Novaes, Braskem’s commercial head for green polyethylene.

A second plant is likely to follow, if manufacturers show sufficient interest in the plastic, which will have the same characteristics as petroleum-based polyethylene but help reduce greenhouse gasses and meet consumer demand for more environmentally friendly products.

A new plant would take about three years to build.

The firm is studying possible locations for a second plant, including real estate in the center-south’s sugar cane heartland to have ready access to ethanol, the plastic’s raw material.

Ethanol will have to be transported over a long distance to reach the Triunfo plant in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state.

“Cane (ethanol) brings many advantages. Cane is very efficient at capturing CO2 in the growth process,” Novaes said in a presentation on the product at the opening of the three-day FO Licht Sugar and Ethanol Conference in Sao Paulo.

The firm has committed to selling 50,000 tonnes of the green plastic to Toyota (8015.T), a quarter of the 200,000 tonnes the Triunfo plant will produce initially.

Novaes said European firms had shown keen interest in the product and Braskem expected to export to the United States.

Demand appeared limited on the domestic market so far.

“It’s still a niche,” said Novaes, who said the 200,000 tonnes was less than 1 percent of total global polyethylene consumption. (Reporting by Peter Murphy; Writing by Reese Ewing; Editing by Walter Bagley)

Source: Reuters

“Biodiesel will be incorporated into the energy matrix, initially accounting for 5 percent of domestic demand, that is 742 million liters (196 million gallons) per year, which is equivalent to the amount of conventional diesel fuel imported by Argentina in 2008,” Planning Minister Julio de Vido told a press conference.

The minister predicted that over the next four years biodiesel’s share of the conventional diesel-biofuel blend will rise to 20 percent.

The law mandating that diesel fuel contain a renewable component dates back to 2006 and stipulates that the measure must go into effect in 2010.

Separately, the minister said that in the face of “persistent record-high temperatures” in the current Southern Hemisphere summer, the electrical system has responded “perfectly within the normal parameters.”

He acknowledged that “there may have been some isolated” problems with the service, but nothing serious.

De Vido added that the government has already invested 18 billion pesos ($4.66 billion) to expand electricity generation and transport capacity in Argentina.

In that sense, he said investment projects totaling 29 billion pesos ($7.51 billion) are currently being carried out, in addition to planned future projects that will cost 31 billion pesos ($8.03 billion) EFE.

Source: Laht efe

FORMOSA (From our correspondent). – Directive of the Lloyds Bank and an investor from the United States visited this province recently, interested in acquiring lands to produce jatropha, a pluriannual crop that doesn’t impose the necessity of recurrent replanting.

 It´s a high value input for the biodiesel production. It is known that the most productive species of this plant are from Peru, although they are broadly spread in Brazil and in India.Â

Luis Basterra, the minister of Production explained it this way, who also detailed that the oil obtained from the plant is not eatable, for what it doesn’t compete with those that have nutritious property.

Contrary to the soya or the sunflower, that besides being used for biofuels are also demanded for human consumption, the jatropha only has industrial application and it is destinated only to the energy generation.Â

Previous investigationÂ

The official revealed, also, that the provincial Goverment has interest in promoting the production of this crop in his territory for what help has been requested to the center of validation for agricultural technologies, in which an experimentation program is being developed.Â

The objective of the technical advice is to evaluate the consequences of the introduction of this new species in the province, this is, to know in advance the fitosanitary risk that it can imply.Â

Without this previous investigation, in which can be known, for example, the susceptibility of the jatropha to certain illnesses and the varieties that better adapt to the conditions of the Formosa´s atmosphere, it won’t be able to take advange of the commercial opportunity that the crop represents, given the high biofuels demands in the world, at this moment.Â

As it could be known, the executive of the financial entity that was in Formosa, showed particular interest in acquiring the farm “La Floresta”, one of the oldest of the province, located in the Southwest, with a surface of 80.000 hectares. The establishment is supplemented with another, with equal characteristics, located in the neighboring province of Chaco, on the other side of the Bermejo river.Â

Source: La Nación

SAN PABLO (Reuters). – The international demand of ethanol would register an increase in the next months, but the Brazilian market will continue being the main production attractiveness in Brazil, the major world-wide biofuel exporter, an analyst said.

Encouraged by the increasing fleet of “flexible” fuel vehicles in the country, the demand of ethanol in Brazil reached a record last year and would increase again in 2008 in the middle of the peak in the sales of new automobiles, said Pliny Nastari, director of the Datagro consultant. “For the next five to seven years, the most important market will be the domestic one. The ethanol exports will increase, but just modestly”, indicated Nastari in Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuel Summit, in San Pablo.

After the stagnate for 20 years, the Brazilian ethanol consumption grew in 3700 million liters in 2007, a record of 16,700 million liters. This year it would increase in 2900 million liters, in line with the increase of cars sales, the consultant emphasized.

The greater economic growth and the reductions of the interest rates in Brazil encouraged the sales of new vehicles in a 28 percent in 2007 and would increase to a 18 percent this year. The “flexible” fuel vehicles represent 86 percent of those sales.

In 2007, the competitive prices of ethanol in gas stations also encouraged the cars sales, detailed Nastari. However, the world-wide demand of ethanol did not reach the expectations of the majority of Brazilian producers and operators. The strong increase in the northamerican production, the commercial barriers and the indecision of some governments to introduce obligatory fuel mixtures frustrated the most optimistic perspective.

After registering an increase in 2006, the ethanol exports of Brazil fell in 2007 to 3800 million liters and they will be reduced again this year to 3400 million liters, said Nastari. The analyst affirmed that the expansion of the ethanol local market was causing a “structural change” in the Brazilian sugar industry, because the sugar mills are producing more ethanol than sugar. Datagro anticipates that the Brazilian demand of ethanol would reach 32,000 million liters after 2014, when that biofuels gets to represents 53 percent of fuels used in the green light vehicles, due the increase of the “flexible” fuel automobiles fleet.

The exports would not exceed the 7000 million liters in 2014. At that time, the sugar mills would destine near 62 percent of the countries cane drip to the ethanol production, against the near 55 percent of the South center region of Brazil in cycle 2007/2008.

Source: La Nación