Petrobras greenlights renewables plant for RPBC refinery

Petróleo Brasileiro SA has taken positive final investment decision (FID) to move forward with its earlier-announced plan to build a grassroots dedicated biorefining plant at its 170,000-b/d Refinaria Presidente Bernardes (RPBC) refinery in Cubatão, São Paulo.

Approved by Petrobras’ board on June 19 at an estimated investment of about $1.2 billion, RPBC’s proposed biorefining plant will be equipped to produce up to 15,000 b/d combined of biojet fuel—or bio-QAV—and renewable diesel, the company said.

With formal FID now in place, Petrobras said it will move on to finalizing selection of and signing contracts with unidentified service providers for the project for anticipated start of construction by yearend 2026.

Based on its current timeline, Petrobras said it is targeting startup of the renewable fuels plant at RPBC sometime in 2030

Now included as part of its 2026-30 business plan, Petrobras first unveiled RPBC’s proposed biorefining plant in 2024, which—already under technical and economic feasibility studies at the time—was to be configured to flexibly process 790,000 tonnes/year of various renewable feedstocks to produce 6,000 b/d each of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and 100% renewable diesel (R100), as well as 3,000 b/d of other unidentified renewable products.

Petrobras said the now-approved RPBC renewables project aligns with the company’s broader commitments of leading a just energy transition in Brazil and supporting the aviation sector's global commitments to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) regulations, as well as Brazil’s domestic Fuel of the Future regulation designed to promote renewable fuels and establish a framework for carbon capture and storage (CCS) across the transportation sector.

REDUC’s fist soybean oil-based SAF sale

Announcement of FID on the RPBC renewables plant followed Petrobras’ June 17 confirmation that its 239,000-b/d Duque de Caxias (REDUC) refinery in the Baixada Fluminense area of Rio de Janeiro had completed first production and sale of a first 3,800-cu m batch of SAF made from soybean oil certified under the CORSIA low Land Use Change (ILUC) risk standard, which verifies sustainability criteria and a lower risk of impact on new land areas.

Produced via co-processing and featuring 1% renewable content, the SAF batch marked “commercialization of the world’s first SAF made from certified low-ILUC-risk soy [to demonstrate] Petrobras’s commitment to sustainability, the energy transition, and the development of products aligned with market and societal demands [for lower-carbon solutions],” said Angélica Laureano, Petrobras’ director of logistics, sales, and markets.

In October 2025, the REDUC refinery secured Brazil’s first international approval to advance commercial-scale production of SAF via the hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) co-processing route complying with ISCC System GmbH’s International Sustainability Carbon Certification (ISCC) standards, validating that SAF produced at the site meets the highest international sustainability and lifecycle carbon emission standards.

Developed under ICAO’s CORSIA, the ISCC CORSIA certification was a prerequisite for commercial-scale SAF production following rigorous assessment of the production’s lifecycle carbon emissions and traceability.

Equipped to produce as much as 10,000 b/d of SAF using a blend of conventional petroleum and up to 1.2% renewable feedstock, REDUC’s integration of bio-based oils—such as vegetable oil—into existing refining infrastructure via the HEFA co-processing method allows the refinery to produce SAF alongside conventional jet fuel with minimal investment, Petrobras previously said.