Brazil Lays Out US$ 35 Million for a Bioenergy Disneyland

Brazil Magazine
Written by Cláudia M. Abreu
Thursday, 27 November 2008

Biofuels and oil. These are the main topics of the visit of Russian president Dimitri Medvedev to Brazil this week. On Tuesday, November 25, Medvedev met with Brazilian state-controlled oil multinational Petrobras president, Sérgio Gabrielli, in Rio de Janeiro, where Petrobras is headquartered.

The meeting served to open doors to oil cooperation between the Brazilian company and Russian organizations, mainly in the areas of production and exploration of oil and natural gas, research and development and biofuels.

Petrobras already has a memorandum of understanding signed with Gazprom, the main Russian company in the sector of natural gas and one of the main producers and holders of global reserves of the product. The Russian company should open an office in Rio de Janeiro next year.

The Russian president was introduced to biofuels produced from sugarcane, castor seeds, sunflower, etc. Medvedev visited an exhibition and received information about the production of biofuels in Brazil, research conducted in the country and the development of flexible fuel vehicles. Medvedev should take back figures about ethanol and biodiesel, the Brazilian trump cards for replacement for what is currently the main energy base in the world: oil.

Still in the matter of biofuels, the country may progress further in the research on the matter with an innovative project: the Bioenergy City. Scheduled for early 2009, the project should bring together efforts and investment from the public and private sectors.

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