Roberto Castello Branco, the CEO of Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras, said during the CERAWeek energy conference on Tuesday that biofuel, especially those for the aviation sector, is key to decarbonize transportation in coming years. Bio-based aviation fuels are produced from plants or waste and emit less carbon dioxide than conventional fossil-based fuels. Branco also said that Petrobras planned to capture 25 million tons of CO2 through 2025 while cutting emissions from its upstream and refining operations.
Brazil has a diversified energy matrix and a large consumer of domestic ethanol, thanks to its large sugarcane and corn production. Its imports of oil products increased 4.4% to 34.2 Mcm in 2019. However, it also boosted fuel exports by 2.6% in the same year to 13.7 Mcm, according to figures by the cuntry’s oil regulator.
Petrobras is also the largest exporters of low-sulfur marine fuel in Latin America, facing no significant competition in this sector from its regional peers such as Mexico’s Pemex and Venezuela’s PDVSA. It exports fuels for the aviation and maritime sectors.
