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February 5, 2008 |
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BANCO NACIONAL: Grants BRL1.97-Million Loan to Vale do Ivai Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econ“mico e Social's board has approved a BRL1.97-million financing to Vale do Ivai S/A Acucar e Alcool. The resources will be directed to the construction of the Technology Reference Center for the sugar-alcohol sector, in the Municipality of Sao Pedro do Ivai, in the ambit of the Bank's financing line, Innovation-Production. The line, created in 2005, enables a financing of up to 100% of the investment amount, which is fully carried out according to the TJLP, Long-Term Interest Rate, used as a reference in the majority of the financings granted by BNDES, which is currently 6.25% per year. In the last two years, the Bank has already disbursed BRL117 million on innovation projects. In this case, the Bank's share will be equivalent to 79% of the total investment of the project, which is budgeted in BRL2.48 million. BNDES's support will contribute to increase the competitiveness of an important part of the Brazilian industry by enabling a higher quality to the alcohol production of the factories, which are clients of the Reference Center, and expanding the productivity of yeasts. The investments will also enable the finding of new economic applications in yeasts. With the resources, the company will develop models and processes of alcohol fermentation and distillation, aiming to obtain high performances, both in the production of alcohol and yeast mass. For this reason, the alcohol factories will be the main beneficiaries of the research results, as the microorganism (Sacharomysees Cerevisiae), which has been chosen for the development of the studies, is a type of yeast which produces bioethanol from saccharose. Yeast is one of the several products which can be obtained from the sugar cane, which is an excess of the sugar cane juice fermentation, in the alcohol production. Each liter of produced alcohol leaves, as a residue, 30 grams of yeast on a dry basis. In Brazil, it is estimated that only 10% of the yeast production potential are used in the manufacture of products for human and animal consumption. The largest part of the productive potential is either wasted by factories and distilleries, which are not aware of the yeast distillation process in the fermentation, or sold in the gross form, for the animal feeding, without undergoing any type of industrial improvement. The project will make feasible technological leaps in the areas of yeast production of a better quality, sugar cane juice fermentation and alcohol distillation, diffusion of new processes for the companies in the sugar-alcohol sector and breweries. Besides this, it will reduce the consumption of electrical and thermal energy and liquid effluents. Regional impacts of the project - The center shall make feasible technologies which can contribute to the improvement of the competitiveness of sugar-alcohol factories and breweries of the region. The new products arising from the Reference Center, when manufactured on industrial scale, will be able to generate an increase in the manpower demand, which has a multiplier effect in the region. Vale do Ivai, established in 1981, operates in the sugar-alcohol sector, with an installed milling capacity of 1.5 million tons of sugar cane/crop. The production forecast for the crop of 2007/2008 is 57 million liters of alcohol, 127 thousand tons of sugar and 25 thousand tons of yeast cream. About Banco Nacional Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social is Brazil's national development bank. It provides financing for projects within Brazil and plays a major role in the privatization programs undertaken by the federal government. * * * Banco Nacional currently carries a Ba2 foreign long-term bank deposit rating from Moody's, and a BB+ long-term foreign issuer credit rating from Standards and Poor's. The ratings were assigned in August and May 2007, respectively. |
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