Brazil's privately owned Grupo Potencial will invest 200 million reais ($37 million) to build two "green fuel" pipelines in the south of the farm powerhouse, the company's Vice-President Carlos Hammerschmidt said on Monday.
The biofuel pipelines, which will be built starting next year if all permits are granted, will stretch 55 kilometers (34.2 miles) each and will the longest of the kind in the country.
One of the new pipelines will transport biodiesel and the other biofuels like ethanol, connecting the company's Lapa biodiesel plant to a cluster of fuel distributors. It will spare the environment of use thousands of tanker trucks and enable Potencial to boost its own clean fuels portfolio.
The plant sells 65,000 cubic meters of biodiesel monthly on average, and intends to transport half of this via one of the new pipelines.
Potencial's investment signals confidence that overall biofuels demand will rise as consumers demand less pollutant sources of energy, requiring efficient delivery options.
"It's a question of humanity's survival," Hammerschmidt said by telephone referring to the importance of growing global biofuels supplies to prevent ever-more common environmental disasters.
Brazilian biodiesel producers, with access to abundant raw materials like soy, are clearly at an advantage. Cargill and ADM (ADM.N), opens new tab, among others, already produce biodiesel, opens new tab here while BP (BP.L), opens new tab is expanding its biofuels clout.
