Major oil company enters ethanol industry

AgWeb.com
2/22/2010

Royal Dutch Shell plc has plans to strike a deal with Brazil’s Cosan for a $21 billion a year ethanol joint venture. Shell will become the first major oil company to access ethanol on this scale. The deal will be Cosans largest entry into fuel distribution as well. Cosan purchased Exxon Mobil’s Esso chain of service stations for $1 billion in 2008. Shell and Cosan’s 50/50 joint venture features 4,500 filling stations nationwide.

The companies plan to more than double ethanol output to up to 5 billion liters a year from about 2 billion now, according to Shell’s downstream director, Mark Williams.

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