Rio de Janeiro – Petrobras starts producing petrol with a 3% mixture of ethanol (E3) in Japan. The measure is the company’s first step in its project to enter the Asian market, trading Brazilian ethanol.
According to a press statement disclosed by the company, Brazil Japan Ethanol – a joint venture between the Brazilian organisation and Japan Alcohol Trading – inaugurated on Monday (2), in Japan, the first production unit of E3 – fuel made from a mixture of petrol and 3% ethanol.
The production capacity of the mill is estimated at up to three million litres of E3 a month. The fuel should be distributed in independent petrol stations. The supplier of petrol for the project should be refinery Nansei Sekiyu, in Okinawa, in which Petrobras has 87.5% participation.
With the enterprise, Petrobras hopes "to show Japanese businessmen the technical and economic viability for sale in the country of a new fuel, which is both efficient and more ecological."
The construction of the mill, which began in October 2008, is part of the Sodegaura project, a partnership between Brazil Japan Ethanol and the Ministry of Environment of Japan, which is aimed at the introduction of E3 on the Japanese market.
Petrobras also informed that the mill is installed in the city of Sodegaura, in Kanto, in the Central Region of Japan, which answers to 40% of the total volume of petrol consumed in that country.
*Translated by Mark Ament
