Carbon capture hub could serve ethanol industry
Renan Lopes, chief financial officer (left); Tiago Homem, technology director; and Daniel Pedroso, CEO of EnduraCarbon
Leo Pinheiro/Valor
A company founded by former Petrobras and biofuel industry executives has asked the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) for authorization to test a project in west-central São Paulo that would capture and store underground the carbon dioxide emitted by the region’s ethanol plants. EnduraCarbon, founded a year ago, plans to capture the CO2 and inject it permanently underground, generating carbon removal credits for companies seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
The project became possible with the signing of Decree 13095 of 2026 on August 13, which regulates several types of carbon capture, transportation, and storage (CCS) activities provided for under the Fuel of the Future Law.
The decree made the ANP responsible for authorizing projects and regulating the sector. Under the rules, EnduraCarbon’s project falls under bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which uses carbon generated through bioenergy processing or biofuel production.
EnduraCarbon plans to develop a hub with underground carbon injection wells that would receive liquefied CO2 emitted by different mills. Ethanol plants currently release the CO2 generated during fermentation into the atmosphere. Those with biomethane facilities also emit CO2 from the biogas purification process, which separates methane from carbon dioxide.
Calculations by EnduraCarbon’s partners indicate that the hub would require an investment of R$1.5 billion if testing confirms its viability. It could store 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
The company spent the past year developing the project and its business model while monitoring CCS technology regulation, CEO Daniel Pedroso said. One of the company’s five partners, Pedroso built his career at the ANP and Petrobras. At the oil company, he held several management positions and most recently headed its CCS operations before leaving with Tiago Homem, now an EnduraCarbon partner and director of projects and technology.
Since founding the company, the partners have studied historical geological and seismic data, including information from wells drilled in the rural areas of São Paulo state by Petrobras and Paulipetro since the 1960s. Their goal was to assess the possibility of injecting gas into saline reservoirs in the state.
“We have been studying the Paraná Basin for CCS opportunities. We saw potential in the bioenergy industry, where we could contribute our expertise,” Pedroso said. The company’s research concluded that the broader Bauru region offers the best conditions for a project of this scale because of both its geology and its proximity to several ethanol plants in São Paulo.
EnduraCarbon has already signed an agreement with Usina São Manoel, located in the municipality of São Manuel, São Paulo, under which the mill will supply the project with CO2 and electricity cogenerated by burning sugarcane biomass.
“Ethanol plants generate biogenic carbon [with a short atmospheric cycle] through ethanol fermentation. There is also a wave of investment [by ethanol plants] in biomethane, which generates additional carbon dioxide,” explained Renan Santos, a former GranBio vice president who is now an EnduraCarbon partner and chief financial officer. The company’s other partners include geologist Renato Darros de Matos, formerly of Petrobras, and Alexsander Costa, formerly of GranBio.
Only one BECCS project is currently under construction worldwide: a project operated by corn ethanol producer FS in Lucas do Rio Verde, Mato Grosso. Scheduled to begin operating in September, the FS project will store carbon emitted by the company’s own plant and account for the removed carbon in the biofuel’s emissions footprint. This will allow FS ethanol to capture more carbon than it emits over its life cycle.
EnduraCarbon’s project is not tied to a single company. Because the hub will not be physically connected to the mills, the carbon will have to be transported there. The plan is to use trucks powered by biomethane, a biofuel with a much smaller carbon footprint than diesel, which the partner mills could supply themselves.
The company also plans to install and operate carbon dioxide liquefaction units at the mills. These units could use electricity cogenerated from sugarcane bagasse to power the liquefaction process, Pedroso explained.
“The project was designed to achieve scale and economic viability. We began talking with mills, and an opportunity emerged for a commercially viable project aligned with major CCS projects worldwide,” the chief financial officer added.
Once the ANP authorizes the studies, EnduraCarbon will have three years to drill wells and conduct testing. If the research confirms that the operation is viable and safe, the company will apply to the ANP for storage authorization. Under the law, companies may operate carbon injection wells for 30 years, with the option of a 30-year extension.
According to Pedroso, the carbon credit market is expected to develop in the coming years as demand grows among technology companies and data centers, allowing credits to be sold under long-term contracts.
Market participants are concerned about how internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs)—certificates equivalent to carbon credits that can be exported—will be regulated. The federal government is considering limits on export volumes to ensure an adequate supply of carbon credits for meeting national targets.
Santos said ITMO exports could attract foreign capital. “Because [BECCS] generates an engineered carbon credit [using technology], it is capital-intensive,” he said. According to Santos, the company is in talks with “institutional investors and large companies interested in advancing the climate agenda.”
Translation: Todd Harkin
