Last week, a Mozambican delegation signed a memorandum with the Brazilian Union of Biodiesel and Biokerosene (Ubrabio), making it possible to share technologies for setting up a biodiesel production industry in Mozambique.

Mozambique does not yet produce biodiesel, but it does have a policy of blending biodiesel and fossil diesel. The country intends to replicate Brazil's experiences, according to a portal in the Latin American country.

According to João Macarigue, coordinator of the Economic Reforms Coordination Office of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Mozambique is "well-off" with raw materials and the capacity to produce biofuel and process it locally. "But we don't have the technical capacity or consolidated investments."

Mozambique is yet to study which raw materials can be used in local biodiesel production, but Macaringue anticipates that coconut, palm and cottonseed have potential. Today, two foreign companies are testing biodiesel production in Mozambique, TotalEnergies and Eni.

"Mozambique has a schedule for blending biodiesel into diesel that foresees using 3% of the biofuel in diesel this year and increasing the content to 10% in ten years, as well as a plan to raise the blend to 20% "as technology evolves," says Gustavo Santos, coordinator of the Tony Blair Institute, which supports the Mozambican side.

For his part, Vale's former executive in Mozambique, Marcelo Tertuliano, said that the next step "is to create a working group that will study the biodiesel program in Brazil and plan the steps to implement the plan in Mozambique, mapping out what needs to be done".

However, the Mozambican authorities believe that there is no infrastructure to meet the short-term objective and admit some imports at first.

Even so, the plan is to produce biodiesel in the country itself, as part of a broader strategy by the Mozambican government to promote development.

The Mozambican diesel market is 1.5 billion liters per year. This volume is equivalent to just 2% of the Brazilian market. Mozambique's plan is to supply the domestic and regional markets.