BNDES LISTS FIVE MOST COMPETITIVE COUNTRIES IN ETHANOL PRODUCTION

The chart above was prepared by Luiz Carlos Correia Carvalho, former president of UNICA, the powerful association of sugarcane businesses of the state of Sao Paulo and, later, chairman of the Brazilian Industry Chamber of Sugar and Ethanol, part of that country’s Ministry of Agriculture.

The first column lists the countries where ethanol is most competitively produced*. The middle column defines indices for each of them (with the world average equal to 100) and the column on the left shows the number of tons of total sugars produced per hectare.

The chart is part of a broader study published by Mr. Carvalho, who based his data on the 1999-2000 sugarcane harvest. It was subsequently published by the Brazilian government’s national development bank (BNDES) in 2003.

In June 2005, Mr. Carvalho participated in an IEA conference in Paris, during which he delivered a presentation on the Brazilian experience with biofuels in general and ethanol in particular. This session was followed by another that analyzed “the separate elements of a national biofuels strategy: designing a national cost-benefit analysis, creating a proper regulatory and policy framework, and establishing national environmental standards. Presenters also addressed the socio-economic/sustainable development component, including rural community development, environmental impacts, income generation, and the foreign currency potential.”

*These figures already discount income from byproducts. In Brazil, for example, the crushed sugar cane, or bagasse, is burned to generate the heat necessary to process the fuel. While energy generation through bagasse burning used to be considered a marginal product just a few years ago, it currently accounts for 8% of a typical Brazilian refinery’s revenues, as excess energy may be sold to the national power grid.

Follow what's happening in the Brazilian ethanol market on Ethablog, the only blog in English dedicated to Brazilian ethanol.