Brazil Cosan Acquiring ExxonMobil

Brazilian energy giant - Cosan which produces Brazil's major ethanol is planning to acquire ExxonMobil’s operations in Brazil for $826m for a direct control of more than 1,500 fuel stations in Brazil.

The take-over will inherit $163m in debt from ExxonMobil and $35m in net credits specific for the fuel stations operation. However, ExxonMobil is still in charge of its major chemical plants and upstream oil and gas operations especially at offshore Santos Basin.

Analysts are looking at the strategic move as a favorable one since it lets Brazil Cosan to take charge of the fuel stations for distribution of its vast production of Brazil's ethanol.

Lawsuits Await Oil Majors for Ethanol-Gasoline Damages

In what could be a hard slap for the environment, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, Valero, ConocoPhillips and several other oil majors are facing a lawsuit for the manufacture and sale of ethanol-blended gasoline due to the allegedly blended biofuels damaging marine fuel tanks and engines including polluting the marine environment.

The lawsuits is costing thousands of dollars in repairs of hard items alone. It was understood that the ethanol in gasoline fuel has corrosive properties and dissolved the fibreglass resins used in the fibreglass tanks as well as engines.

Since the banning of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) in 2004, Ethanol has been added to regular gasoline to boost octane levels, reduce engine knocking and improve vehicle performance.

So far, Chevron, BP, Shell, Valero and ConocoPhillips are the oil majors facing with the lawsuits with other names like PetroDiamond, Tower Energy and Big West currently on the list as well.

Texas Building Renewable Fuels Complex by Orion

Orion Ethanol is planning to build a renewable fuel complex from corn fructose in Texas. Orion has already secured an idle wet mill in Dimmitt, Texas, which will be integrated into the company's 2million gal/year renewable fuels complex.

The wet mill will be able to produce 60m gal/year ethanol 10m gal/year edible oil for the first stage of the project. Later, Orion Ethanol plans for additional 10m gal/year cellulose-to-ethanol process, a 12m gal/year biodiesel plant, a 25,000 tonne/year yeast plant and a 60-75 megawatt (MW) wind and biomethane power plant.

Brazil Uses More Ethanol than Gasoline

Brazil, the world's largest ethanol producer from sugarcane consumes more ethanol than gasoline at the start of the South American winter as predicted by analysts. Ethanol demand in Brazil is especially high and it exceeded gasoline was in February 2008.

Brazillian ethanol consumption mainly goes to sales of flexible-fuel vehicles, which can burn either ethanol or gasoline which is the normal spec for somewhat 2.75 million automobiles in 2007 alone.

Cellulosic Ethanol for Biorefineries Hitting US

US is investing $114m for cellulosic ethanol projects to explore cellulosic ethanol feedstock options and production processes for biorefineries. The investment is for four years development of funding of four pilot plants before contribution from private sector. The government funding is seen as part of US goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012 under the President Bush administration.

The pilot plant will be able to produce about 2.5m gal/year of cellulosic ethanol in a plant to build a commercial ethanol plant with annual output capacity of around 25m gallons or 75,000 tonnes.

There are as yet no commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol production units in the US. Current technologies explored under study for cellulosic ethanol production includes conventional cellulosic conversion technologies, biogenetic and microbiotic conversion of cellulosic feedstock into cost-effective fuels.

Cellulosic Ethanol Production Route from Biomass

Incentives to go with ethanol is pressured under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which requires the US to produce at 100m gal/year of cellulosic ethanol by 2010 and 500m gal/year by 2012 in the route to achieve 36bn gal/year of renewable fuels in 2022.

Petrochemical News: EU Banning Biofuels Import

More and more countries are eyeing European Union (EU) stance on biofuels as development of banning of biofuels into EU countries are in talks. The EU is in the process of drafting a law that will propose on the ban imports of certain biofuels. If successful, the law would stop imports of crops cultivated in forests, wetlands and grasslands biofuels. The legislation, backed by environmentalists is due to proliferation of greenhouse gas emissions by reducing natural forests for biofuels plants.

The new EU legislation would monitor Europe's biofuels from crops such as rapeseed and imports of palm oil from South-East Asia, mostly Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand and soya from Latin America and ethanol from Brazil. The ban would most likely impacted palm oil imports for biofuels on the basis that growing the crops for fuel can harm the environment.