page_title: Ethanol fuel by country
section_title: Brazil
hierarchical_section_title: Ethanol fuel by country / Brazil
caption_attribution_description: Typical Brazilian made dual-fuel (ethanol and gasoline) or full flex-fuel automobile models.
context_page_description: The world's top ethanol fuel producers in 2011 were the United States with 13.9 billion U.S. liquid gallons and Brazil with 5.6 bg, accounting together for 87.1% of world production of 22.36 billion US gallons. Strong incentives, coupled with other industry development initiatives, are giving rise to fledgling ethanol industries in countries such as Germany, Spain, France, Sweden, China, Thailand, Canada, Colombia, India, Australia, and some Central American countries.
context_section_description: Brazil has the largest and most successful bio-fuel programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugarcane, and it is considered to have the world's first sustainable biofuels economy. In 2006 Brazilian ethanol provided 18% of the country's road transport sector fuel consumption needs, and by April 2008, more than 50% of fuel consumption for the gasoline market. As a result of the increasing use of ethanol, together with the exploitation of domestic deep water oil sources, Brazil reached in 2006 a volumetric self-sufficiency in oil supply, but is not effectively self-sufficient, since most of its locally extracted oil is heavy.
  Until 2005 Brazil was the world's top producer of ethanol fuel when it was surpassed by the United States. Together both countries were responsible in 2011 for 87.1% of the world's ethanol fuel production. In 2009 Brazil produced 27.5 billion liters (7.26 billion U.S. liquid gallons), representing 35.9% of the world's total ethanol used as fuel. Sugar cane plantations covered 3.6 million hectares of land for ethanol production, representing just 1% of Brazil's arable land, with a productivity of 7,500 liters of ethanol per hectare, as compared with Germany maize ethanol productivity of 3,000 liters per hectare.
   
  The ethanol industry in Brazil is more than 30 years old and even though it is no longer subsidized, production and use of ethanol was stimulated through:
  Low-interest loans for the construction of ethanol distilleries
  Guaranteed purchase of ethanol by the state-owned oil company at a reasonable price
  Retail pricing of neat ethanol so it is competitive if not slightly favorable to the gasoline-ethanol blend
  Tax incentives provided during the 1980s to stimulate the purchase of neat ethanol vehicles.
  Guaranteed purchase and price regulation were ended some years ago, with relatively positive results. Ethanol producers in the state of São Paulo established a research and technology transfer center that has been effective in improving sugar cane and ethanol yields.
  There are no longer light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline. Since 1977 the government made mandatory to blend 20% of ethanol (E20) with gasoline (gasohol), requiring just a minor adjustment on regular gasoline motors. Today the mandatory blend is allowed to vary nationwide between 18% to 25% ethanol (E25) and it is used by all regular gasoline vehicles and flexible-fuel vehicles. The Brazilian car manufacturing industry developed flexible-fuel vehicles that can run on any proportion of gasoline and ethanol. Introduced in the market in 2003, these vehicles became a commercial success, reaching the milestone of 10 million vehicles produced in March 2010, and 15 million in January 2012. The ethanol-powered "flex" vehicles, as they are popularly known, are manufactured to tolerate hydrated ethanol (E100), an azeotrope composed of 95.6% ethanol and 4.4% water.
   
  The first flex motorcycle was launched to the market by Honda in March 2009, and a second model in September 2009. By the end of 2009, both Honda flexible-fuel motorcycles had sold a total of 183,375 units, representing an 11.4% market share of the Brazilian new motorcycle sales in that year.  Two other flex-fuel motorcycles manufactured by Honda were launched in October 2010 and January 2011. During 2011 a total of 956,117 flex-fuel motorcycles were produced, raising its market share to 56.7%. Cumulative production of the four available flex fuel models since 2009 reached 1.48 million units in December 2011. and 2011.
  Since 2009 the Brazilian ethanol industry has experienced financial stress due to the credit crunch caused by the economic crisis of 2008; poor sugarcane harvests due to unfavorable weather; high sugar prices in the world markets that made it more attractive to produce sugar rather than ethanol; and other domestic factors that resulted in a decline of its annual production despite a growing demand in the local market. Brazilian ethanol fuel production in 2011 was 21.1 billion liters (5.6 billion U.S. liquid gallons), down from 26.2 m
caption: Typical Brazilian "flex" models from several carmakers, that run on any blend of ethanol and gasoline, from E20-E25 gasohol to E100 ethanol fuel.
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