Brazil’s Cosan to acquire Usina Benacohol for $61 million plus assumption of $20 million debt

February 15, 2008

In Brazil, Cosan announced that it will acquire the Usina Benalcohol ethanol plant for $61 million, plus assumption of $20 million in company debt. Benalcohol has a 1.3 million tonnes of cane a year, and is located in Aracatuba, Sao Paulo state. The plant will be Cosan’s fifth in the area.

Cosan has said it is aggressively seeking opportunities in the United States. The chief commercial officer, Marcos Lutz, told Ethanol Statistics that Cosan has established a three-step strategy for international expansion, including a dehydration plant in the Caribbean, an ethanol distillery in Mexico and up to two ethanol plants in the US.

Lutz said that the Caribbean investment of $10 million was not as significant as the development of US-based production capacity.

Cosan had previously said that the company’s $1 billion IPO, completed last year, provided the necessary growth capital for the company, which derives 33 percent of its revenue from ethanol production.

In Brazil, Petrobras, the state oil company and Cosan, have locked horns over a Petrobras plan to build a state-owned pipeline to transport ethanol. “If Petrobras has the logistics, it will have control of the sector and this we don’t want,” said Rubens Ometto Silveira Mello, Cosan’s controlling shareholder and chief executive officer, told Agencia Estado. The proposed ethanol pipeline will run from Goias state to Sao Paulo.

Cosan (CZZ) has 17 ethanol plants in Brazil and is the country’s largest producer.

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Written by Jim Lane · Filed Under International, Producer News