US-Brazil venture’s second ethanol plant to have a 680 million litre capacity

FS Bioenergia, a joint venture between Tapajós Participações and Summit Agricultural Group, is planning to open the company’s second corn-only ethanol plant in Mato Grosso, Brazil, following R$1 billion (almost €250 million) in investment.

The new plant will also have the capacity to co-generate energy at a capacity of 170 thousand MWh per year. This is enough to power a city of about 70 thousand residents.

Combined with its other plant in Mato Grosso, FS Bioenergia expects its total capacity to reach over 1.2 billion litres of ethanol, 900 thousand tonnes of corn bran and 35 thousand tonnes of corn oil annually.

"The region of Sorriso and the state of Mato Grosso, as a whole, is extremely important and strategic to the FS Bioenergia and being close to these producers in Sorriso will give us even more enhancement to innovate and continue to produce with the quality that we seek,” said FS Bioenergia CEO Henriqe Ubrig in a statement.

According to Reuters, the Brazilian government has encouraged this kind of investment in centre-west areas like Mato Grosso and has subsidised the transportation of corn from these regions to other parts of the country to support prices and aid farmers.