BP shifting ethanol focus to Brazil

Oil super major BP says it will invest $350 million (£220 million) to expand production of ethanol from sugarcane at plant in Brazil. The announcement comes less than two months after the company said it would drop its 2009 plans for a $300 million cellulosic ethanol plant in Florida, US.

The company said at the time that it no longer planned to pursue commercial scale production of the fuel in the US, preferring instead to focus efforts on two R&D plants and licensing its existing biofuels technology.

Production capacity at the ‘Tropical’ sugar mill in Edeia, Goiás State, will double to 450 million litres of ethanol equivalent per year, with work to be complete by early 2015.