Asian and European markets have been driving increasing demand for Brazilian ethanol, including for new market opportunities beyond road fuels, panelists said at the Argus Biofuels and Feedstocks Latin America conference in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.
Global demand for ethanol from top biofuel producers Brazil and the US has grown on rising blend mandates in Asian countries such as Vietnam and India and higher fuel supply risks because of the war in the Middle East, Brazilian corn ethanol producer FS' commercial director Paulo da Cunha said.
While US ethanol mostly heads to Asia and UK, there is a growing demand for Latin American — especially Brazilian — ethanol in Europe that could rise even more thanks to the recently adopted Mercosur-EU free trade agreement, Paraguayan corn ethanol firm Inpasa's trading director Renato Zicardi said.
Brazil's domestic market isinvesting to supply sectors other than road transport, including the alcohol-to-jet route for sustainable aviation fuel and ethanol-fueled vessels, Cunha said. The International Maritime Organization has approved a corn-ethanol route for maritime transport, Zicardi said.
Corn- and sugarcane-based ethanol complement each other and are not competitors, further supporting demand, Cunha said.
The maturity and diversity of financing sources in Brazil for ethanol projects should help the sector develop in coming years without major hurdles, Spain-based bank Santander's project finance director Marcelo Sahatdjian said.
