MOSCOW (MRC) -- The chief executive of Brazil's state-run oil company
Petrobras, Roberto Castello Branco, said biofuels, especially those for the
aviation industry, will be key for "de-carbonizing" transportation in coming
years, a goal for energy transition, reported
Reuters.
Brazil, a major corn and sugarcane producer and a country
with a more diversified energy matrix than its neighbors, is also a large
consumer of domestic ethanol, with pure gasoline supplies a rarity.
"For
the future, we are evolving to bio jet fuel, which will be very important for
de-carbonizing transportation, so we are focusing on ships and aircraft," he
said at the CERAWeek energy conference on Tuesday.
Aviation biofuels are
biomass-derived fuels from plants or waste used to power aircrafts. They produce
lower CO2 emissions than conventional jet fuel.
Petrobras is among the
region's largest exporters of low-sulfur marine fuel. Competitors including
Venezuela's PDVSA and Mexico's Pemex have not showed much progress in recent
years in producing low-sulfur fuels that exports markets demand.
Brazil
increased 4.4% its imports of refined products, mainly diesel, to 34.2 million
cubic meters in 2019 but also boosted fuel exports 2.6% that year, including
fuels for the maritime and aviation industries, to 13.7 million cubic meters,
according to figures by the nation's oil regulator.
Asked about how a
giant company such as Petrobras, which has focused on keeping production costs
low, can move faster to achieve energy transition, Castello Branco said that
"elephants can dance and fly as well."
"Petrobras was known as an
elephant, a state oil company very big and too bureaucratic, very slow-moving.
We are looking for fast solutions and diagnosis for solving problems as we are
living in a technology-driven world."
The company aims to capture 25
million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) through 2025 while reducing emissions
from its fossil fuel operations.
As MRC informed before,
Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras is seeking 800 million reais (USD152
million) in compensation from engineering group Odebrecht in arbitration
proceedings over its alleged violation of the shareholders agreement in
petrochemical company Braskem.
We remind that
Petrobras may need more than a year to divest its stake in Braskem, said Andrea
Almeida, Petrobras CFO, in early July, 2020. She said during the company"s
recent webinar that Petrobras plans to give more time for potential investors to
make offers for the company"s assets, including for its refineries and stakes at
its petrochemical and fuel distribution affiliates. The divestment of
Petrobras"s stake in Braskem in 2020 would be desirable but "might not be
possible" as the COVID-19 pandemic has changed market conditions, she said. The
company plans to close part of its refinery sales in 2021. In December, Roberto
Castello Branco, CEO of Petrobras, said that he wants to sell the company"s
stake in Braskem within a year. Petrobras owns 32.15% of Braskem.
We also
remind that Braskem is no longer pursuing a
petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West
Virginia. And the company is seeking to sell the land that would have housed the
cracker. The project, announced in 2013, had been on Braskem"s back burner for
several years.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing
polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2%
year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density
polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to
the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the
formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, excluding producers'
inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply of exclusively PP random copolymer
increased.
Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated
energy firm. Petrobras" activities include exploration, exploitation and
production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as
refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas
and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related
activities. |
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