Japan's Sojitz buys stake in Brazil bioethanol

02 November 2007 12:07  [Source: ICIS news]

TOKYO (ICIS news)--Major Japanese trading house Sojitz Corp has acquired a 33.33% stake in Brazil's ETH Bioenergia for yen (Y) 9.2bn ($80m) and aims to start bioethanol and sugar production soon, a company spokesman said on Friday.

Sojitz and Odebrecht subsidiary ETH Bioenergia planned to acquire three companies in the Brazilian states of Matto Grosso do Sul, Goias and Sao Paulo, and produce 980,000 kilolitres/year of bioethanol and 790,000 tonnes/year of crude sugar by 2016, the spokesman said.

The companies would start from growing sugar canes, he added.

By 2021, the companies plan to purchase six more companies and increase bioethanol and crude sugar capacities to 2.6m kilolitres/year and 2.4m tonnes/year respectively.

Bioethanol produced will be sold in Brazil, and crude sugar will be exported to other countries including the US, according to the spokesman.

The cost for the entire project was expected to total Y420bn, with Sojitz planning to contribute a third of the total, the spokesman said.

ETH Bioenergia purchased an ethanol producer in Matto Grosso do Sul last summer and currently produces about 62,000 tonnes kilolitres/year of bioethanol and 79,000 tonnes/year of crude sugar, according to the spokesman.

Sojitz and ETH Bioenergia said they would eventually have a 5-10% share in the domestic sugar cane sector, Sojitz said in a statement.

Sojitz was also considering producing plastics from bioethanol with Odebrecht’s subsidiary Braskem, the spokesman said.

Brazil is the world’s biggest producer of sugar cane and the second largest manufacturer and primary consumer of bioethanol, according to Sojitz.

($1 = Y115)

By: Tomomi Yokomura
+65 6780 4359

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