Brazil 2025 ethanol output to reach 100bn litres

05 March 2008 19:15  [Source: ICIS news]

SAO PAULO (ICIS news)--Brazil’s ethanol output could soar past 100bn litres/year by 2025, from 22.4bn litres in 2007, due to continued strong demand at home and abroad, a top Brazilian consultant said on Wednesday.

“Brazil’s domestic demand, which totalled 17.6bn litres in 2007, will grow at a pace of 3bn litres/year until 2025,” Datagro president Plinio Nastari said during an industry event in Sao Paulo.

The projection is based on the premise that Brazil will continue to add 2m vehicles/year to its fleet in the next 17 years, and that 65% of those vehicles will run on hydrous ethanol, Nastari said.

About 87% of new cars now sold in Brazil are flexible-fuel capable, which means these vehicles, known as FFVs, can run on gasoline or stand-alone hydrous ethanol.

Brazil’s FFV sales in 2007 totalled 2m units, a 40% increase from 1.43m vehicles sold in 2006, according to industry association Anfavea.

Nastari said non-fuel ethanol demand would hit 7.3bn litres by 2025, while ethanol exports would climb modestly until 2015, reaching 7bn litres that year.

However, the consultant expects ethanol exports to surge after 2015, jumping to 25bn litres in the following 10 years due to likely demand from the US.

Brazil’s 2007 ethanol exports totalled 3.44bn litres, a 0.6% gain from 3.42bn litres exported in 2006, according to government data.

Brazil will need to crush three times more sugarcane to meet its needs by 2025, Nastari said, adding that Brazil processed 491m tonnes of sugarcane in the 2006-2007 crop year.

The consultant predicted sugarcane fields in Brazil would occupy 17m hectares of land in 2025. That figure compares with 7m hectares in the last harvest.

Nastari spoke at F. O. Licht’s Sugar and Ethanol Brazil 2008. The event was organised in partnership with IBC Brasil.

For more on ethanol visit ICIS chemical intelligence

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

By: William Lemos
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