Egypt and Brazil analyse sustainability of jet fuel sourced from sugar cane

25-Aug-11

Sugar production firms run by the Food Industries Holding Company (FIHC) Egypt agreed in principle with state-run petrochemical companies to launch a project for producing plane fuel. The cost of the project is estimated at LE1.3 bln. Both sides had held a series of meetings and agreed on preparing a joint feasibility study subject to approvals. The project targets production of ethanol from molasses, which would help to reduce the quantities of plane fuel imported by aviation companies operating in Egypt. A regional initiative, launched in June 2011 by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to provide finance for renewable jet fuel projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, has made its first grant. The IDB, along with aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Embraer, is to fund a sustainability analysis of producing jet fuel from Brazilian sugarcane. The study will evaluate environmental and market conditions for the use of renewable jet fuel produced by synthetic biofuel technology company Amyris. It will be led by ICONE, an agricultural research think-tank in Brazil, and will be independently reviewed and advised by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In 2009, Embraer and Amyris announced a sustainable jet fuel initiative that aims to conduct a demonstration flight in 2012 of a GE-powered Embraer aircraft belonging to Brazilian airline Azul using biofuel derived from sugarcane.