Sep 30, 2021
Corn Ethanol Facility in Mato Grosso will Become Brazil's Largest
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Brazil's National Petroleum Agency (ANP) gave the go-ahead last Monday for the Inpasa Agroindustrial corn-based ethanol facility in the city of Sinop, Mato Grosso to expand their operations. Upon completion, the facility will have the largest authorized capacity of any corn-based facility in Brazil.
The capacity will go from 1.75 million liters of hydrous ethanol (used as E100) and 1.75 million liters of anhydrous ethanol (blended into gasoline) per day to 3 million liters each for a total of 6 million liters per day.
The Inpasa facility, which opened in 2019, is owned by a Paraguayan company and it is their first facility in Brazil. The company's second facility is currently under construction in Mato Grosso with investments of over R$ 1 billion.
Mato Grosso is the largest corn producing state in Brazil as well as the largest corn-based ethanol producer. The Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics (Imea) indicated that the domestic demand for corn in the state continues to increase principally due to ethanol production. As a result, domestic corn prices in the state are near historic highs at R$ 71.39 per sack (approximately $6.25 per bushel).
During the third week of September, the average price of corn in Mato Grosso was R$ 5.49 per sack above the price on the Chicago Board of Trade (approximately $0.50 per bushel). A year earlier, the average price in Mato Grosso was R$ 0.39 per sack above the price on the Chicago Board of Trade (approximately $0.03 per bushel).
Even with these elevated corn prices, the amount of corn-based ethanol production in the state continues to increase unabated.