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Mubadala Capital, the wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company, is planning to invest $13.5 billion in the biofuels sector in Brazil over the next decade.
Mubadala Capital’s head of Brazil told the London-based Financial Times in an interview that the move is a part of Abu Dhabi’s broader plans for the Latin American giant, which includes the creation of a new stock exchange.
Oscar Fahlgren revealed a “large-scale development” by its energy company, Acelen, will comprise five $2.7 billion “modules”, which will begin production by the end of 2026, FT reported. Each will feature a biorefinery with the capacity to process 20,000 barrels of fuel per day.
Mubadala Capital will also spearhead the conversion of an existing oil refinery in the north-eastern Brazilian state of Bahia, acquired from state-controlled Petrobras in 2021, with the total $13.5 billion investment to be funded through a mix of equity and debt over a period of five to 10 years, Fahlgren said in the same interview.
Mubadala Capital is also looking to open a bourse in Brazil by next year through its Americas Trading Group, a financial assets trading platform it purchased in 2023, he further revealed to the FT.
“Brazil is a very large country. It has only one stock exchange. And I think that’s suboptimal infrastructure for the players that operate in this segment,” Fahlgren told the FT. “It will probably be a staged launch — perhaps start with equities, then expand. No asset classes are off the table.”
Fahlgren added that Mubadala Capital was also involved in talks for a proposed new football league in Brazil whose goal is to package up and sell the commercial rights.
(Writing by Bindu Rai, editing by Seban Scaria)
