bp will acquire Bunge’s 50% holding interest in its bp Bunge Bioenergia S.A. joint venture, one of Brazil’s leading biofuels-producing companies. Upon completion, bp will become sole owner of the industrial scale sugarcane and ethanol business, enabling bp to accelerate value creation through integration with bp’s trading and technology capabilities.... Read more →

Toshiba Corporation and Sojitz Corporation of Japan, and Brazil’s CBMM, the world’s leading producer of niobium, have completed development of a next-generation lithium-ion battery that uses niobium titanium oxide (NTO) in the anode. (Earlier post.) They unveiled a prototype E-bus powered with the new battery (SCiB Nb), which realizes an... Read more →

Following a sales record for electrified vehicles in Brazil last year, the BMW Group is announcing local production of the BMW X5, the first premium plug-in hybrid model built in South America. The vehicle is produced at the BMW Group plant in Araquari in addition to the BMW X1, BMW... Read more →

Stellantis announced a record investment plan for the South American region totaling €5.6 billion (R$30 billion) from 2025 to 2030, making it the largest investment in the history of the Brazilian and South American automotive industry. The planned investments will support the launch of more than 40 new products during... Read more →

At the European Hydrogen Week event in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the €2.2-billion second auction of the European Hydrogen Bank, as well as the signing of a major investment agreement with the Brazilian state of Piaui. The announcement came three days before the official launch... Read more →

ArcelorMittal Tubarão and EDP, a company that operates in all segments of the Brazilian electricity sector, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of a pilot plant for the production and use of green hydrogen in the steel manufacturing process. The initiative is part... Read more →

To support development and global roll out of environmentally friendly combustion engines with renewable biofuels, MAHLE has established a Global Bio-Mobility Center in Jundiaí, Brazil. Just recently, key members of the G20 including Brazil, the United States, India, and European countries like Italy have established a Global Biofuels Alliance to... Read more →

Mining giant Vale signed a protocol of intent with Petrobras to develop low carbon solutions, taking advantage of the technical expertise of both companies and their synergies. The partnership is for a two-year period and will assess joint decarbonization opportunities, including the development of sustainable fuels—such as hydrogen, green methanol,... Read more →

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that the state will move to adopt the Advanced Clean Cars and Advanced Clean Trucks rules, which will set annual targets for the sale of new zero emission cars and trucks in New Mexico over time. The rules would require vehicle manufacturers to... Read more →

The Volkswagen brand aims to make significant gains in South America with a major product offensive. By 2027, the company plans to grow by 40% in Brazil, the region’s largest market. For example, 15 new electric and flex-fuel vehicle models are being launched by 2025 alone. Hybrid vehicles will also... Read more →

Volkswagen, Stellantis and Glencore are supporting the purchase of the Atlantic Nickel nickel sulfide and the Mineraçao Vale Verde copper mine in Brazil by ACG, a London-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), for US$ 1 billion. Critical minerals mined at the Brazilian sites will be refined in Europe and North... Read more →

Glencore will acquire 30% of Hydro’s Brazilian alumina refinery Hydro Alunorte and Hydro’s 5% ownership in the Brazilian bauxite producer Mineracão Rio do Norte (MRN). MRN is Brazil’s largest bauxite producer. Glencore will also acquire an additional 40% stake in MRN, which is currently owned by Vale. This 40% interest... Read more →

Brazil’s Acelen will invest more than R$12 billion (US$2.44 billion) over the next 10 years in the production of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through the hydrotreatment of vegetable oils and animal fat. The company is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2026. . Acelen... Read more →

Atlas Lithium Corporation, a US-based mineral exploration company focused on lithium and other battery metals in Brazil, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. with respect to Mitsui’s potential interest in acquiring the right to purchase Atlas Lithium’s future lithium concentrate production. Mitsui is a global... Read more →

Brazil’s National Development Bank (BNDES) will support Eve’s eVTOL development efforts (earlier post) with two distinct credit lines, totaling $92.5 million. Both credit lines are expected to offer beneficial terms and conditions to Eve with a 12-year maturity and amortization grace period. The financing is subject to the negotiation and... Read more →

Shell has agreed to buy a total of 3.25 billion liters (860k gallons US) of sugar-cane cellulosic ethanol under a long-term agreement with Brazil’s Raízen. The low-carbon fuel is expected to be produced by five plants that Raízen plans to build in Brazil, bringing its total portfolio of cellulosic ethanol... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz do Brasil has presented the fully electric eO500U bus chassis. The bus chassis was specially designed for Latin American cities and will be produced in São Bernardo do Campo, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, from 2022 on. The fully electric bus chassis has a range of up... Read more →

Lilium GmbH, a developer of regional electric air mobility solutions (earlier post), intends to enter into a $1-billion commercial deal and strategic alliance with Brazilian airline Azul. Lilium plans to work with Azul to transform high-speed regional transportation in a country which sees close to 100 million domestic air passengers... Read more →

Battery maker Octillion Power Systems will supply advanced lithium-ion batteries to Brazilian manufacturer FNM (Fábrica Nacional de Mobilidades) for the production of 1,000 electric trucks for beverage maker Ambev. Octillion and FNM announced their partnership in October 2020. (Earlier post.) Ambev will use the electric trucks to deliver beverages throughout... Read more →

Li-ion battery provider Octillion Power Systems is working with the reborn FNM (now Fábrica Nacional de Mobilidades) in Brazil to produce battery-electric trucks; FNM has selected Octillion as the official battery supplier for the coming lineup. Octillion will open a local battery factory inside FNM’s facility to lower manufacturing and... Read more →

Brazil-based GranBio announced a strategic alliance with NextChem, the subsidiary of Italian engineering giant Maire Tecnimont dedicated to the energy transition, to co-license its patented technology for the production of second-generation (2G) ethanol worldwide. The partnership will enable the commercialization of this technology globally, combining GranBio’s knowledge in biomass and... Read more →

Anelise Lara, the head of Petrobras’ refining, announced that the company is ready to begin production of renewable diesel from soy or other edible oils at commercial scale. Petrobras will expand investments in the segment as soon as it is granted a permit, Lara said. Petrobras recently successfully concluded tests... Read more →

Traffic accidents are the leading cause of non-natural deaths worldwide. Lower speed limits may help prevent accidents. But speed-reduction policies can be controversial and effects are not well documented. A new study from University of Illinois shows that speed reductions in São Paulo, Brazil, significantly reduced fatal accidents and increased... Read more →

OXIS Energy and the Minas Gerais Development Company CODEMGE have signed a 15-year lease agreement with Mercedes Benz Brazil (MBB) to take possession of a plant located at the MBB manufacturing site in Juiz de Fora in southeast Brazil to build a Li-sulfur battery manufacturing operation. NORDIKA Pharmaceutical of Brazil... Read more →

Brazil-based oil company Petrobras will direct part of the processing capacity of its high-performance computers (HPC) to contribute to the Folding@home Project effort on studying the coronavirus behavior in the human body and how the disease progresses, from the interaction of viral proteins, making way for for the development of... Read more →

Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus (VWCO) announced its partners for its first mass-produced electric truck: the 14-tonne e-Delivery. Partners are Bosch, CATL, Moura, Semcon, Siemens, Weg, Meritor and Eletra. All are part of the e-Consortium in VWCO’s development and production complex in Resende (RJ). VWCO announced the formation of the e-Consortium... Read more →

BP will form a 50:50 biofuels joint venture with Bunge—a leader in agriculture, food and ingredients. BP will combine its Brazilian biofuels and biopower businesses with that of Bunge to create a world-scale, highly-efficient producer of sugarcane ethanol in Brazil: BP Bunge Bioenergia. BP’s interest in the new venture will... Read more →

Grove Hydrogen Automotive Co. Ltd. signed a cooperation agreement with the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil to proceed with the production and distribution of Grove hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for Brazil. Much like China, Brazil is a country rich in geographic resources. Grove is focused on establishing sustainable mobility worldwide,... Read more →

Nissan unveiled the Frontier Sentinel, a concept pickup truck designed by Nissan Brazil’s styling studio, at the 2018 São Paulo Motor Show. The concept is designed for rescue missions in all types of Brazilian terrain. Frontier Sentinel integrates a host of features, including two battery packs from the Nissan LEAF... Read more →

Volkswagen unveiled the Tarok Concept to the world at the São Paulo International Motor Show (6 to 18 November). The all-wheel drive all-rounder combines the progressive features of the latest generation of digitally networked SUVs with the versatility of a five-meter pick-up. The Tarok Concept is powered by a 1.4-liter... Read more →

Brazil-based Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus, part of the TRATON Group, introduced the e-Delivery electric truck (earlier post)—a battery electric version of the company’s Delivery mode—at IAA Commercial vehicles. The model is in the test phase and is to go into production by 2020. The company also introduced the e-Flex flexible... Read more →

Researchers have discovered a novel enzyme (a β-glucosidase) in microorganisms living in the Brazilian Amazon that could boost efficiency of the sugarcane bagasse saccharification process, which accounts for up to 50% of the global costs of cellulosic ethanol production. The team isolated, characterized and reproduced the enzyme, proving it to... Read more →

A study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the University of São Paulo revealed that a beltway constructed to divert heavy-duty diesel vehicles traffic in the Brazilian city of São Paulo improved air quality and public health in the city. The study was published in the... Read more →

Toyota unveiled a prototype hybrid flexible-fuel vehicle (Hybrid FFV) during an event Toyota held São Paulo, Brazil. Stakeholders including the state government, universities, and the sugarcane association (the Sugarcane Industry Union: UNICA) attended the event. The prototype is the combination of a flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) that can be powered by... Read more →

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) announced a $2.5-million settlement with SSA Containers, Inc. and its affiliates. The Seattle-based company received a notice of violation for failing to repower, retire or retrofit its cargo-handling equipment at the ports of Long Beach and Oakland, and for failing to certify large spark... Read more →

BP Biofuels and Copersucar have agreed to form a joint venture to own and operate a major ethanol storage terminal in Brazil, better and flexibly connecting ethanol production with the country’s main fuels markets. Copersucar is the world’s leading sugar and ethanol trader, with the largest sugar and ethanol storage... Read more →

A new study by a team from Brazil, with colleagues in the US, has shown that particulate pollution biomass burning in the Amazon induced inflammation, oxidative stress and severe DNA damage in human lung cells. After 72 hours of exposure, more than 30% of the cultured cells are dead, the... Read more →

Vastly expanding sugarcane production in Brazil for conversion to ethanol could reduce current global CO2 emissions by as much as 5.6%, according to a new study by an international team led by researchers from the University of Illinois. This would be a massive undertaking, involving the conversion of hundreds of... Read more →

by Irina Slav for Oilprice.com Say what you will about offshore oil and gas exploration, but it’s still alive and kicking—high production costs and all. The latest demonstration of the viability of deepwater projects, even in the post-2014 oil industry era, comes from none other than Brazil. On Wednesday, the... Read more →

Novozymes has launched Fermax, an enzyme protease that prevents foam development during the sugarcane ethanol fermentation process, while delivering improved control and replacing chemicals. For an average size plant, trialing partners also experienced a cost reduction of up to 20% when using Fermax, as compared with use of chemicals. Foam... Read more →

UNICA, the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, this week submitted formal comments to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opposing the agency’s proposed reductions (relative to the volumes originally specified) to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volume targets for 2014, 2015 and 2016—and especially the volume target for advanced biofuels. (Earlier... Read more →

Ceres, Inc, an agricultural biotechnology company, and Brazilian energy company Raízen S.A., signed a multi-year collaboration agreement to develop and produce sweet sorghum on an industrial scale. Raízen has conducted field and industrial evaluations of Ceres’ sweet sorghum hybrids since 2011. Sweet sorghum can extend the ethanol production season by... Read more →

Boeing and Embraer have opened a joint sustainable aviation biofuel research center in a collaborative effort to further establish the aviation biofuel industry in Brazil. At the Boeing-Embraer Joint Research Center in the São José dos Campos Technology Park, the companies will coordinate and co-fund research with Brazilian universities and... Read more →

GranBio, a 100% Brazilian industrial biotech company, has begun production at the first commercial-scale plant for second-generation (cellulosic) ethanol in the Southern Hemisphere. The Bioflex 1 unit, built in São Miguel dos Campos, Alagoas, has an initial production capacity of 82 million liters (21.6 million gallons US) of ethanol per... Read more →

A study by a pair of researchers at Northwestern University found that when fuel prices drove residents of São Paulo, Brazil, to switch from ethanol to gasoline in their flexible-fuel vehicles, local ozone levels dropped 20%. At the same time, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide concentrations tended to go up.... Read more →

Ryder System, Inc., a leader in commercial transportation and supply chain management solutions, reports that its fleet of over 500 natural gas vehicles has surpassed 20 million miles (32 million km). The fleet consists of liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas tractors serving more than 40 customer operations in... Read more →

Iogen Corporation announced that Brazilian ethanol giant Raízen Energia Participações S/A has started construction of a commercial biomass-to-ethanol facility using Iogen Energy’s advanced cellulosic biofuel technology. (Iogen Energy is a joint venture between Raízen and Iogen Corporation. Earlier post.) The $100-million plant, to be located adjacent to Raízen’s Costa Pinto... Read more →

An overview of the direct sugar to hydrocarbon (DSHC) process for the production of renewable jet fuel. Source: Amyris. Click to enlarge. Renewable fuels and chemicals company Amyris, Inc. and GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes S.A., the largest low-cost and low-fare airline in Latin America, signed a memorandum of understanding that... Read more →

Novozymes has entered into a collaboration agreement with Brazil’s largest sugarcane crusher, Raízen Energia S/A (the $12-billion joint venture between Shell and Cosan founded in 2011). (Earlier post.) As part of the agreement, Novozymes will supply enzyme technology to Raízen’s first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Brazil, scheduled to be... Read more →

UK-based TMO Renewables (TMO) and Usina Santa Maria Ltda have entered into an agreement to form a joint venture to build the first commercial production plant in Brazil to convert sugar cane waste (bagasse) to cellulosic bioethanol. TMO signed a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Usina Santa Maria Ltda... Read more →