Brazil’s first ethanol billionaire, Rubens Ometto, has made a habit of shaking up Brazil’s fuel industry.

In 2010 the chief executive of Cosan, a sugar, fuel distribution and logistics company, teamed up with Anglo-Dutch group Shell to set up Brazil’s dominant biofuel company, Raízen, valued at the time at $12bn.

Then he paid Britain’s BG Group $1.8bn for control of Brazil’s largest gas distribution unit in 2012, and this year he launched a $3bn acquisition of the nation’s biggest railway operator, América Latina Logística, known as ALL.

“If you analyse this new company, it will handle [the freight of] about 60 to 65 per cent of Brazilian agro-business, so you can imagine the importance it will have not only for farmers but also for Brazil,” said Mr Ometto in an interview.

In three decades Mr Ometto, a straight-talker with square-framed glasses and a sharp sense of humour, has turned a family-owned sugar mill in Piracicaba, São Paulo state, into the world’s largest sugar and ethanol processor. He has built a personal fortune estimated by Forbes at $2.2bn.

Mr Ometto is among a group of Brazilian entrepreneurs who emerged in the past decade through aggressive acquisitions, including the Batista brothers, who control JBS, the world’s largest meat processor.

His rise has followed the volatile fortunes of Brazil’s sugar cane industry, buffeted in recent years by adverse weather and swings in government policy.

Sugar and ethanol are Brazil’s third-largest agricultural export group (after soyabeans and meat), with total sales offshore of $13.7bn last year.

A boom five years ago attracted international investors including Shell and Bunge, the US-based agricultural group, which invested $1.4bn in sugar mill assets.

They were attracted by an expected rise in demand for biofuels. But the industry was hit by a drought in 2010, and then faced rising wages and land costs.

Meanwhile, the government has been trying to control inflation by suppressing fuel prices as much as 20-30 per cent below international levels. This has made ethanol less competitive at the pump.

A presentation by Itaú BBA, an investment bank, showed that 58 mills had closed operations since 2007 and 33 companies were under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

“There are very few companies in the sector that are generating positive free cash flow,” said Alexandre Figliolino, director of the Brazilian Agribusiness Association. In the south-central region, the heart of Brazil’s sugar cane production, only about 15 companies were in positive territory out of just over 200.

One of the survivors is expected to be Cosan. The company reported net revenue of R$36.2bn ($36.2bn) last year, up about 30 per cent on a year earlier. Net income fell during the period from R$746.8m in 2012 to R$261.3m on expenses related to the Comgás acquisition, taxes and other items.

Yet analysts are positive on the group’s prospects because its acquisition spree has enabled it to diversify.

Sugar cane and ethanol remain a central business. Cosan’s joint venture with Shell, Raízen Energia, generated R$9.2bn in sales last year. But today Cosan’s profits are well balanced. Its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation last year came 28 per cent from the cane business, 26 per cent from petrol stations, 21 per cent from gas distribution and the rest from other businesses, Citi calculates.

This compares with 60 per cent from cane in 2011.

Mr Ometto says the company continues to invest in sugar cane, and plans to open a mill that will produce a highly productive form of ethanol known as cellulose ethanol – produced from the inedible parts of the plant.

But, for now, his attention seems to be on the deal with ALL. Cosan must convince the government to extend ALL’s rail concessions, which run until 2027.

“I will be 77 years old when that happens,” he says. “Just a boy, with a hell of a lot still to do.”