The accomplishments are due to a years-long push to find oil within Brazil’s borders and to decades of government efforts to keep oil consumption low by encouraging the use of alternatives such as ethanol from sugar cane and soy.
"Brazil has a lot to be proud of when you talk about petroleum policy, especially when you look at other Latin American countries," said Roger Tissot, an analyst with the U.S. based consulting firm PFC Energy.
Brazil with a 186 million population consumes about 1.8 million barrels of oil a day, while the U.S. consumes more than 10 times as much, 58% of it imported, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
However the search for alternative sources and Brazil’s willingness to look for new sources of oil are lessons in how public policy can confront dependence on foreign energy.
"Brazil has taken effective steps to protect itself from international price volatility," said Sophie Aldebert, a Rio de Janeiro-based associate director with the consulting firm Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
But the energy turnaround is astonishing for a country that in the 1980s imported 40% of its energy needs and whose fragile economy repeatedly has felt the inflationary pressure of soaring energy prices.
Brazil’s emergence as an energy player began 40 years ago when state planners launched oil exploration off its southern coast. The move was daring since Brazil wasn’t among the world’s technology leaders at the time, and the deposits presented enormous technological challenges, said José Luiz Marcusso, Petrobras’ general manager of domestic exploration and production strategy.
Brazil pioneered deep-water exploration methods using state-of-the-art pipelines, buoys and other equipment that extended the depths in which oil could be reached. Today, it extracts four-fifths of its oil from under the ocean floor of the Campos Basin field near the coasts of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo states.
Another major factor has been the rise of alternative fuels. Half of all the new cars sold in Brazil are so-called "flex-fuel" models that can run on ethanol as well as gasoline.
Ethanol makes up about a third of the fuel that’s pumped into cars in Brazil, compared with 2% in the United States. Besides, Brazilian law requires gasoline to contain at least 25% ethanol.
Ethanol has one major drawback: It produces 20% fewer miles per gallon than gasoline. But Brazilians also pay 40% less for ethanol, an average of US$ 2.54 per gallon versus US$ 4.21 per gallon of gasoline, a difference that makes up for the lower fuel efficiency.
Consumption of ethanol has grown nearly 10% from 2000 to 2004, while production zoomed 40%.
Mercopress – www.mercopress.com
]]>Brazil is getting ready to take a big leap in the direction of the use of biodiesel, starting next year. The Brazilian government has authorized gas stations to sell vegetable diesel oil, produced from plants, starting in January.
The fuel distributors may add 2% biodiesel to diesel made from oil. There is a three-year span for adaptation. In 2008, the addition starts being compulsory.
“We are replacing diesel with biodiesel, as we did with gas and alcohol. Everything that happened with alcohol in Brazil may also happen with biodiesel,” stated the director of the Brazilian Agribusiness Association (Abag), Luiz Carlos Corrêa Carvalho.
Brazil is reference in the development of fuel alcohol and already adds 25% anhydrous alcohol to gas. Of the new cars sold between January and November this year, 25% were alcohol fuelled or dual fuel.
Like what happened with alcohol in the 1970’s, when use of the product was the subject of a national incentive program, Proalcool, the federal government has created the National Program for Production and Use of Biodiesel to organize production and provide incentives to the use of the fuel.
As Brazilian diesel consumption is currently at 38 billion liters a year, the addition of 2% biodiesel should generate a demand of 760 million liters a year.
The use will permit the country to reduce oil diesel imports and also generate more jobs in the field, for soy, castor plant and sunflower seed producers, plants used in the extraction of the vegetable oil.
“In 2005 we will import four billion liters. With this program we are going to save, we are going to use 800 million liters of vegetable oil,” stated the minister of Mines and Energy, Dilma Roussef.
The Minister addressed the matter December 13, together with Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on radio program Coffee with the President, on National Radio.
Lula stated that the demand for biodiesel may, at the least, generate an income of US$ 1,000 a year for 250,000 families that work on plantations.
“This is a project that may mean very much to the poorer regions of the country,” stated the president.
Although there are already various productive groups spread around the country, production of biodiesel should become better structured next year, due to demand.
The government forecasts that trade of vegetable diesel may start in February, in the region of Belém, capital of the northern state of Pará, with the addition of the product made from palms.
Halfway through the year, castor biodiesel should be used in the Northeast and in August the soy oil and sunflower oil should start being used in the Midwest and South of the country.
Apart from being a cleaner fuel, biodiesel is one of the alternatives to the use of oil, whose reserves should end in less than 40 years.
The director of the Abag believes that in the future Brazil may even export biodiesel, as is the case with alcohol.
Brazil has substantially been increasing its exports of alcohol. Sales rose from around 800 million liters in 2003 to 2.2 billion this year.
“And they should go on rising,” he said.
Alcohol production, which is currently at around 14 billion liters, should rise to around 16 billion in 2005, according to Carvalho. The Proalcool was the largest fuel replacement program in the world auto market.
Brazil has been developing research in the biodiesel area for around 50 years and registered the first patent for the production process of the fuel in 1980. There are currently various Brazilian research centers working in the development of biodiesel.
At the beginning of this month, the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) announced its plan of financing up to 90% of the projects involving production of the fuel.
A Long Term Interest Rate (TJLP) will be charged, plus another 1% to 3% a year. The institution also expanded the span for payment of the financing for machinery and equipment used in the production of biodiesel.
Renewable sources answer to 43.8% of the Brazilian energy matrix, according to information supplied by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
The world average is 13.6% and in developed countries 6%.
In up to eight years time, the addition of biodiesel will rise from 2% to 5%. The National Program for Production and Use of Biodiesel is coordinated by 14 Brazilian ministries.
ANBA ”“ Brazil-Arab News Agency
]]>Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil company, reports that its production of petroleum and gas in Brazil and abroad was an average 2,041,753 barrels per day in August. That is down slightly, 0.8%, compared to July, and down 2.3%, compared to August 2003.
Domestic production was an average 1,778,778 barrels per day, down 0.7%, compared to July, and down 3.3%, compared to August 2003.
Foreign production (Petrobras operates in eight countries) was an average 262,975 barrels per day, down 1.5%, compared to July, but up 5%, compared to August 2003.
According to Petrobras, the drop in domestic production was due to the closing of a well which halted production (10,100 barrels per day) on July 31. The well, located in the Marlim Sul field, off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, will return to operation at the beginning of November.
Less than one month ago, the executive manager of Exploration and Production at Petrobras – Petróleo Brasileiro, Francisco Nepomuceno, said the company would continue to increase production until the end of 2005, when production should reach 1.85 million barrels per day.
And in 2006, with a further increase to 2.2 million barrels per day, Brazil would be self-sufficient.
Nepomuceno also said that with the arrival of the P-43 platform in December in the Barracuda-Caratinga field in Campos, there would be a spike in production.
“We have the infrastructure to handle 1.85 million barrels per day by the end of next year,” he declared.
This year production is running at an average 1.56 million barrels per day, but should rise to 1.64 million barrels per day by this December.
Agência Brasil