Rio - Brazil's state-run oil giant, Petrobras, is going to provide technical and commercial support for a fuel program in Nigéria that will use a sugarcane-based ethanol additive (Programa de Álcool Combustível). Nigeria will get assistance from Brazil enabling it to add ethanol to gasoline (which should begin in 2006). Preliminary estimates are that the Nigerian market could absorb 3 million liters of ethanol daily. Brazilian technicians will also assist Nigeria in growing sugarcane. Finally, the two countries will begin technical studies of a biodiesel program (which adds vegetable oils to diesel fuel).

In a note, Petrobras reports that it and the Nigerian state-run oil company (NNPC) have been working together since 2000 on exploration and production of petroleum in the Niger River delta.

Translator: Allen Bennett