By Roberto Samora
SAO PAULO (Reuters)-The Potential Group will invest R $ 2 billion in the construction of a Corn Ethanol in Lapa (PR), where the company projects to have a mega-complex of biofuels taking advantage of the potentialities of Paraná as a major grain producer and the growing demand for bioenergy, the company’s vice president, Carlos Eduardo Hammerschmidt, told Reuters.
The company is in advanced phase in the construction of an overwhelming soybean, which should be ready in the first half of 2026 to offer raw material to the group’s biodiesel factory, which is expanding. In addition, in the future, there are plans for an advanced aviation fuel plant (SAF).
“The purpose of the potential is to have the largest biofuels complex in the world,” said Hammerschmidt, one of the family group’s owners, who with the Ethanol Plant contributions should account for investments at about $ 6 billion since 2012.
The demand of the group’s corn ethanol factory per year is estimated at 1.2 million tons, equivalent to 6% of the cereal production of Paraná, the second Brazilian producer of the grain that is reaping a record of 20 million tons in 2024/25.
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The company intends to start the work of the ethanol plant, using its own resources in 2026, completing the construction possibly until the end of 2027, said its vice president.
The growth in corn ethanol production, more than 30% in south-central Brazil in 2024/25, became important for the country to meet the growing demand for fuels, especially after the adoption of a more than 30% anhydrous alcohol mixture in gasoline, which has been in force since August 1. And in the case of Paraná, the state needs to import the biofuel from other states.
“Brazilian agribusiness has grown a lot in grain. And Brazil has a huge corn production capacity,” said the businessman, noting that once the producer used the second crop, the “safrinha”, to pay soybean harvesting expenses.
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“Today the safrinha has become a ‘safrona’, and is having a lot of supply of corn raw materials, this is providing the account to close in corn ethanol,” he said, when asked about the viability of the project.
Hammerschmidt said corn was a “right fly” to diversify the farmer’s revenue and integrate bioenergy with food production, as a co-product of the cereal ethanol plant is the bran (“DDG”), which can be used as a ration raw material.
“Biofuels in Brazil gave conditions for the meat market to grow,” he said, remembering the soybean bran, used in the manufacture of feed and also a derivative of oil processing, as well as oil, the main raw material of biodiesel in Brazil.
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Following the expansion of the biodiesel factory, which should be completed by the end of 2026, the Paraná group will raise its production capacity of this fuel from 900 million liters/year to 1.62 billion liters/year. The overwhelming Lapa soy, in turn, will have processing capacity of 1.2 million tons per year.
The investment announced in the construction of the ethanol plant is part of a broader strategy of the company, which will also be building two ducts, one for ethanol and one for biodiesel, which will connect the city of Araucaria (PR) to the company’s industrial complex in Lapa, with the possibility of serving other cities. The estimated contribution of the company in these ducts is $ 200 million.
“We will deliver both biodiesel and ethanol within the distributing bases of fuel,” said the businessman, citing that they are also close to the Petrobras oil refinery in Paraná.
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The company founded from a small network of gas stations in southern Brazil in the 1950s, keeps an eye on the possibility of manufacturing sustainable aviation fuel in the Lapa Complex. “We just don’t put the SAF plan now because the demand in the world (yet) is small, and it’s a very high investment, from 3 to 4 billion reais.”
(By Roberto Samora)
