Petrobras JV begins selling E3 gasoline in Kawasaki

A 50-50 joint venture between Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras and Japan Alcohol Trading started selling 3% ethanol-blended gasoline at an independent gasoline station in Kawasaki city in suburban Tokyo. The venture, Brazil-Japan Ethanol (BJE), plans to sell 100 kiloliters per month of E3 gasoline at the station. BJE’s E3 gasoline sales is part of its on-going pilot project sponsored by Japan’s Environment Ministry that originally began in 2007 and will continue till March 2012. BJE’s first entry into E3 gasoline sales came on March 2, when it began selling E3 at a government-owned service station in Tokyo, that was part of a pilot project run by the Osaka prefectural government. (September 2, 2009)