Cláudio Mastella, executive manager of Commercialization in the Internal Market at Petrobras, defended a new way to define the mandates of biofuels in Brazil to increase environmental gains, during the online lecture “Biofuels: the way to the free market”, held this Tuesday (1/12), at Rio Oil & Gas, the largest oil and gas event in Latin America.

Mastella explained that the regulation in force in the country determines the addition of 12% of biodiesel ester to common diesel, sold at the gas stations, while other countries have already adopted quantitative criteria for decarbonization of the atmosphere that result in more effective gains for the environment with mandates of decarbonization, measured in grams of CO2 equivalent avoided per unit of energy generated.

“This change would allow the fuels sold to the final consumer to be effectively less polluting throughout their production chain. Instead of looking at what type of biofuel is being used, allowing for market reserves for less efficient fuels, it would effectively be considered the gain for the environment that a given fuel brings ”, said Mastella. The formula defended by Petrobras is already used in Europe and in the American state of California, the two most demanding markets in terms of reducing pollution in the world.

This change makes room for the adoption of more modern biofuels such as renewable diesel, which is capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70% when compared to diesel derived from petroleum and by 15% when compared to biodiesel ester.

During the event, the executive manager also defended Renovabio, a program created by the Ministry of Mines and Energy to expand the participation of biofuels in the Brazilian energy matrix. Mastella stressed that the program aims to effectively mitigate the emission of gases that cause the greenhouse effect and local pollutants and also to increase the competitiveness of biofuels in the Brazilian energy matrix, in addition to accelerating the development and commercial insertion of advanced biofuels. Federal legislation also has the same understanding (11,097 / 2005), for example, when expanding the concept of biodiesel to include technological advances.

The executive, however, recalled that the creation of exclusive mandates of a regulatory nature for certain biofuels limit the potential of Renovabio, mitigating the possibility of the country complying with international agreements on climate change. Currently, for example, only biodiesel ester can occupy the share of biofuels added to diesel derived from petroleum for sale to consumers. The restriction ends up creating a market reserve for ester-based biodiesel and making it more difficult for more modern biofuels to enter the Brazilian energy matrix. Due to its production process, biodiesel ester contains glycerins and other components that impair the stability of the fuel and can cause clogging in filters, pumps and injection nozzles, impairing the performance of vehicles. The problems are aggravated by the increase in the biodiesel ester content in the mixture with mineral diesel oil. Ester biodiesel still has metallic compounds that impair the functioning of the flue gas treatment systems present in vehicles. This helps pollutants such as particulate matter and nitrogen oxides to be released into the environment.

Petrobras has been defending the possibility of introducing renewable diesel in the biofuel matrix in Brazil. Renewable diesel is a modern biofuel, made with raw materials such as vegetable oils, animal fat and even used cooking oil, which can be mixed with petroleum-derived diesel.

The company concluded tests on an industrial scale this year, where it produced R5 diesel at its refinery in Paraná, that is, diesel oil with a 5% renewable portion and awaits authorization from the National Energy Policy Council for this renewable diesel portion to be accepted as an alternative to comply with the mandatory biofuel content in Brazil, currently occupied exclusively by biodiesel ester.