Brazil's BNDES to invest $85.2m in ethanol mills

07 January 2008 22:07  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--Brazil's state development bank BNDES will invest Brazilian reais (R)150m ($85.2m) in the ethanol and sugar producer Santelisa Vale, the bank said on Monday.

Santelisa Vale, one of Brazil’s top sugar and ethanol producers, will issue shares to the bank’s equity investment vehicle BNDESPAR in order to finance the construction of six new sugar and ethanol mills in the country. Other shareholders include the Brazilian Biagi and Junqueira families and the bank Goldman Sachs.

“[The deal] will make it possible to expand, modernise and build new sugar and ethanol processing units,” the BNDES said in a Portuguese-language statement.

The bank said its investment will contribute to the listing of the company’s shares on Brazil’s top-tier Novo Mercado of the local Bovespa stock exchange, which lists firms with the highest standards of corporate governance. The idea is to foment private investment in the Brazilian ethanol sector, the bank said.

Santelisa Vale intends to raise sugar cane processing by 85% by the 2011/2012 harvest to 35m tonnes, compared with 19m tonnes of current capacity. The new facilities will be built in the southeast Brazilian states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, where the majority of Brazil’s sugar fields are located.

Santelisa Vale resulted from the merger of two large Brazilian sugar mills - Vale do Rosario and Santa Elisa. Brazil is the world’s largest ethanol exporter and the second largest producer after the US.

The expansion plans include electricity generation using sugar cane pulp, the bank said.

($1.00 = R1.76)

Bookmark Simon Robinson’s Big Biofuels Blog for some independent thinking on biofuels

 

By: John Waggoner
+1 713 525 2653

< previous article(ICIS Chemical Business podcast November 2, 2009)

For the latest chemical news, data and analysis that directly impacts your business sign up for a free trial to ICIS news - the breaking online news service for the global chemical industry.

Get the facts and analysis behind the headlines from our market leading weekly magazine: sign up to a free trial to ICIS Chemical Business.

Printer Friendly