Raizen to plough almost €1 billion into building eight ethanol plants

A joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Cosan, called Raizen, plans to spend nearly $1 billion (€846 million) on constructing ethanol production facilities to increase its biofuel output by 50%, according to the Financial Times.

Over the next ten years, Cosan intends to build eight ethanol plants, for an estimated cost of $930 million.

The plants will produce cellulosic ethanol fuel using sugarcane waste as its primary raw material, the most efficient source of biofuel. The first of these eight plants completed construction in late December 2014, and has an annual capacity of 40 million litres. After the completion of all plants, the company expects biofuel output to increase 50%.