Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, June 25 -- Brazil's state-owned Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) likely will include a biomass unit at its planned oil refinery in the state of Ceara in northeastern Brazil, said Fernando Cunha, Petrobras' international biofuels business manager.
"For Petrobras' premium refinery, we've already thought about this question of refining oil together with biomass," he said.
The $11 billion Ceara refinery is expected to produce 300,000 b/d of premium fuels, with some 60% of the oil processed turned into high-quality diesel fuel for export.
Cunha said Petrobras also is in talks to build biodiesel facilities in France and Spain. "Companies from France and Spain have sought us out to study eventual biofuel projects in Europe," he said.
Cunha said talks were still in an early stage, but he noted that Petrobras' goal was to have partnerships in the two countries eventually "evolve" toward the area of distribution.
"To produce (biodiesel), you have to have a network of gasoline stations; you have to form a partnership or purchase a network of gas stations to be a big player in the biofuels market," Cunha said.
