The World Bank`s private sector arm is being deluged with funding requests for ethanol projects around the globe as crude oil prices trade near record highs, an International Finance Corp. official said Thursday. "We`ve been flooded with requests from lots of countries. There`s some requests from Latin America, we`ve had several from Africa and one or two in East Asia," IFC`s Marcelo Lessa said from a cane-ethanol mill in Brazil`s Sao Paulo state.

In the past three years the IFC has invested US$65 million in one ethanol plant in India and another one in Brazil. Now three more Brazil plant investments, valued at between US$35 million to US$50 million each for the IFC, are in line for approval as is another US$20 million investment in Peru, he added.

"In other countries, the issue of ethanol really accelerated in the second semester of last year, so we have received many proposals," the agribusiness expert said. Since November, sugar cane project funding requests -- largely in the feasibility stage -- have come in from Mali, Guatemala, Honduras, the Philippines, Colombia, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Mozambique, Tanzania, Egypt and Turkey. One corn-based project in Ukraine and another beets-based plant in Romania have also sought funds.

He said inquiries have increased since President Bush last week called on the US Congress to reconsider tariffs on imports of ethanol, as crude oil prices traded near the mid-US$70s per barrel.

Brazil is the world`s leading producer and exporter of ethanol, which is derived from its massive sugar cane crop. It already blends its domestic gasoline with 25 percent ethanol and is looking to US, Japanese and Indian markets to boost exports. "We`ll turn several (plans) down because we believe ethanol production has to be competitive with costs in Brazil; otherwise you might be hurting a country economically," Lessa said.

Projects that are more likely to be approved are in countries with a well-established sugar cane infrastructure such as Colombia, Peru, Mozambique, Angola, Thailand and Australia. "India`s a very large producer. They have efficient mills but they have very high costs because of problems on the agriculture side," such as small farms, he said.

Another benchmark is costs, using Brazilian output costs as the standard. That cost is about US$227 per cubic meter, but an 11 percent rise in Brazil`s real against the dollar from January to April has made some proposals uncompetitive. "You shouldn`t mandate ethanol blending into gasoline if your production costs are substantially higher compared with Brazil because Brazil has very low production costs," he said.

Conservative industry estimates in Brazil point to an increase of 85 million tonnes of sugar cane processing capacity over the next three to four years through expansion of existing plants and up to 20 new mills coming on line, he added.

Still, Lessa agreed with an International Energy Agency estimate that, at best, ethanol could make up 10 percent of world gasoline by 2025. Ethanol, an alcohol most often made from grains and sugar cane, is blended with gasoline to reduce tailpipe emissions in cars and trucks.
By Gilbert Le Gras
(Planet Ark, 12/05/2006)
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36321/story.htm