BBF diversifies its 'basket of oils' to dilute risk and grow The company, which started with a focus on palm oil, will now invest in corn ethanol and oleochemicals By Fernando Lopes - From São Paulo
One of the largest palm oil producers in the country, Brasil BioFuels (BBF), with headquarters in São Paulo and operations in the northern region, is expanding and diversifying its business to consolidate itself as an energy company based on a platform made up of several different different renewable sources.
In this process, the company, founded in 2008 and which expects to invoice R$1.6 billion in 2022, compared to R$1.1 billion in 2021, already has projects in an advanced stage for the installation of new cogeneration units in its palm crushing plants in Pará and Roraima, intends to build four corn ethanol production units, and plans to develop a line of oleochemicals capable of replacing products manufactured by the petrochemical industry.
According to Milton Steagall, one of BBF's founders and CEO, it is a few billion dollars in investments that will show the market that the company is betting on sustainable solutions and diluting risks. "It's the energy transition in practice, with vegetable oils resulting in biodiesel, green naphtha and green jet kerosene, among other products," he says.
In the two palm crushing units of BBF in Pará, acquired from Vale, the projects that will be qualified foresee the generation, from biodiesel, of up to 0 megawatts (MW). At the Roraima plant, where tests will begin next month, there will be another 17 MW. It is worth remembering that the company already has 24 thermal plants in the North region - ten of which were bought from Siemens - that use biodiesel produced in a unit in Rondônia. With the ongoing expansion, says Steagall, the number will grow to 38.
Current Production Currently, BBF produces between 190,000 and 200,000 tons of palm oil per year, destined for biodiesel production and the food industry, but by 2024 the volume should approach 300,000. The raw material comes from 54 thousand hectares owned by the company and 7 thousand from family farmers in Pará and 5.5 thousand hectares in Roraima, where another 10 thousand hectares are already being planted. And, as Valor has already reported, a partnership with Vibra, the largest fuel distributor in the country, will multiply this area.
According to the pact signed between the companies, BBF will use part of an already degraded area of over 100,000 hectares to grow palm oil, which will then generate 500 million liters of green diesel (HBO) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in a biorefinery that is being built in the Manaus Free Trade Zone from investments estimated at R$ 2 billion. Vibra will have exclusive access to this production for at least five years.
In the race to become a platform formed by different vegetable oils, BBF also has on the drawing board four projects for the construction of corn ethanol production plants, in partnership with an investment fund whose name was not disclosed. According to Steagall, the first one will be in Rondônia, in the city of Vilhena, and will have a soybean crushing unit attached to it, in an investment that should reach R$ 1.5 billion. The second will be in Roraima, and is budgeted at R$ 600 million.
With the expansions already underway and the corn ethanol plants, the executive projects that BBF's revenues will already jump to about R$ 4 billion per year. But the "icing on the cake" of the company's transformations, as the CEO highlights, is the oleochemicals project to replace petrochemicals. "It is the company's best project. We are going to invest about $3.5 billion in it over the next few years, including industry and the agricultural part," says Steagall. The alternative oils will be produced in conjunction with ethanol.
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