Brazil Needs $50 Billion To Meet Ethanol Demand By 2015-16 -ETH

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SAO PAULO -(Dow Jones)- Brazil's ethanol sector needs around $50 billion of new investments by 2015-16 to meet the country's surging demand for the alternative fuel, according to the president of local ethanol giant ETH Bioenergia.

Brazil's consumption of ethanol is expected to rise to 60 billion liters in the next five or six years due to the country's rapidly growing fleet of flex- fuel cars and new industrial uses for ethanol such as plastics, Jose Carlos Grubisch told Dow Jones Newswires.

Brazil, the world's second largest producer of ethanol after the U.S., consumed 24 billion liters of ethanol in 2009, double the demand of 2005-06.

"This rate of expansion in ethanol consumption is likely to be repeated in the coming years," Grubisch said.

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