BRAZIL’S PETROBRAS TO BUILD ETHANOL PIPELINE

Brazil’s largest oil company plans 800-mile pipeline to transport ethanol from Brazil’s interior to ports.

Henrique Oliveira

Petrobras is preparing to begin construction on its single largest project since it developed a gas pipeline between Bolivia and Brazil, in 1992. The line will carry ethanol produced in the municipality of Senador Canedo, in Goias state, to the Paulinia refinery, in Sao Paulo, and, from there, to the port of Sao Sebastiao.

The project is expected to be concluded in two years, and will use 180,000 tons of carbon steel tubes, laid out over approximately 800 miles. 10,000 men will work on the project, which will also include compression and leakage measurement stations. The cost of the project, estimated at R$ 500 million (~US$ 235 million) will be picked up by Transpetro, a Petrobras subsidiary. The line will serve exclusively ethanol plants producing for international markets, transporting 4 billion liters of ethanol at full capacity.

On its web site, Transpetro speaks at great technical length about the project in a very complete document, which can be read by clicking here.

I have previously shown, by presenting data collated and analyzed by Prof. Jose Goldemberg, the former president of the University of Sao Paulo (USP), the largest in Latin America, that the long-run average cost of ethanol declined 75% in 25 years, from US$680/cubic meter in 1978 to about US$200/cubic meter today.

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