Brazilian ethanol giant Raízen Energia Participacoes S/A, has completed construction of a commercial biomass-to-ethanol facility using Iogen Energy's advanced cellulosic biofuel technology.  The US$100 million plant is located adjacent to Raízen’s Costa Pinto sugar cane mill in Piracicaba, São Paulo, and will produce 40 million litres of cellulosic ethanol a year from sugarcane bagasse and straw. The plant construction was completed on schedule, and production of cellulosic ethanol commenced in late 2014.

Initially, the project will use bagasse as the feedstock and return the lignin residue to the on-site boiler.  The project will deploy all of the core operations developed by Iogen (pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation) and take advantage of the substantial integration opportunities offered by co-locating with a sugarcane mill, which include:

• Access to bagasse at low cost, prepared for use and in steady supply
• Access to sugarcane straw currently left on the field
• Significant capital cost savings through use of existing equipment and other site infrastructure
• Operating costs savings due to sharing across the existing site.
  

Through the Iogen Corp/Raizen jointly owned subsidiary Iogen Energy, Iogen provided Raizen with cellulosic ethanol related process technology and process designs, and on-going operational services.  Subsequent to this first facility, Raízen has said that it plans to build another seven facilities using Iogen Energy's cellulosic biofuel technology.

For recent news and progress on the Costa Pinto facility, please visit our “ News ” section under the Media & Resources area of our website.

Raízen Energia Participacoes S/A is a $12 billion joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Brazilian ethanol company Cosan S.A. It is now Brazil's fifth largest company in terms of billable revenues and the nation's leading manufacturer of sugarcane ethanol, with production of about 2.2 billion liters of ethanol annually. This activity also includes the production of 4.5 million tonnes of sugar and 934 MW of installed electricity production. The company has over 5,200 service stations for retail fuel distribution in Brazil, over 900 convenience stores, 60 fuel distribution depots, and aviation fuel businesses in 58 airports in Brazil.

Raízen's Costa Pinto mill is located approximately 150km northwest of São Paulo. It has a current crushing capacity of approximately 24,000 tonnes of sugarcane per day, and produces over 82 million litres of ethanol per year. For more information, please visit www.raizen.com.