Alfa Laval wins record biofuels order for Brazil SAF biorefinery

Alfa Laval on June 29 signed a 1.1 BSEK contract to supply HVO pre-treatment technology for Acelen’s Brazilian biorefinery. The company said the order, worth about €102 million, was the largest in its history and will be delivered in phases through the project’s expected completion in 2029.

The package covers heat exchangers, separators and other engineered components used to clean and condition renewable feedstocks before downstream upgrading. Acelen’s project is designed to produce more than 17,230 barrels per day of mainly sustainable aviation fuel through the HVO route, using soybean oil, used cooking oil and macaúba, a native Brazilian crop the company has positioned as a scalable low-carbon feedstock.

Acelen has spent several years building out the renewable-fuels plan. The company said its broader investment program calls for more than R$12 billion over 10 years and about US$3 billion in projected total investment for Acelen Renováveis, the independent unit created in 2024 to focus on renewable diesel and SAF from macaúba. Acelen has also said the project could generate 90,000 direct and indirect jobs and move R$85 billion through the economy, while cutting lifecycle carbon dioxide emissions by up to 80% versus fossil fuels.

Feedstock development is part of the strategy. Acelen and Embrapa, together with Embrapii, have launched work to domesticate macaúba for SAF, HVO, thermal energy and other co-products, and the company says the project is being built around 180,000 hectares of the crop in Bahia. That gives the refinery a feedstock base that blends agricultural oils with waste streams, a mix aimed at reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels as Brazil scales low-carbon transport fuels.

The contract also lands as Brazil sharpens its SAF ambitions. IATA said in June in Rio de Janeiro that Brazil has an opportunity to become a SAF powerhouse, a backdrop that has pulled more attention to the front-end processing needed to turn variable-quality oils into refinery-ready inputs. For Alfa Laval, which said it serves hundreds of facilities worldwide, the Acelen order extends its role deep into one of the region’s largest biofuels buildouts.