Brazil vehicular natural gas sales to soar: fuels distributor

Rio de Janeiro (Platts)--12Sep2005

Brazilian sales of vehicular natural gas should surge to about 10-mil cu
m/d by 2010, from about 4.3-mil cu m/d last year, as more vehicles are
converted to run on the fuel, a director of Brazil's largest independent fuels
distributor, said Monday at an oil conference here.
     The market for vehicular natural gas grew 22% last year in Brazil and is 
expected to grow at a faster rate this year, Ipiranga Director Leocadio
Antunes said.
     In addition, flexible-fuel vehicle sales have surged to make up more than
half of new consumer vehicle sales in the country, allowing motorists to
choose between gasoline and ethanol fuels at the pump. By 2010, Antunes said,
Brazil will need to more than double the service stations in the country to
offer natural gas, to more than 2,000 from about 950 now.
     State Petrobras estimates that natural gas demand will more than double
by 2010 to more than 99-mil cu m/d, and the company has set aside $6.5-bil for
gas investments by then. According to Petrobras CEO Jose Gabrielli, who 
spoke at the conference on Monday, gas demand for uses other than thermo-
electric generation is likely to grow by 11% per year between 2005 and 2010. 
Taking into account thermoelectric projects, the demand growth should be 
more than 20% annually, he said.

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