Brazil's Potencial to get sales boost as biodiesel demand surges - VP

By Ana Mano and Roberto Samora

SAO PAULO, March 8 (Reuters) - Brazilian family-owned energy firm Potencial is poised to boost sales on growing demand for cleaner energy sources such as biodiesel, Vice-President Carlos Hammerschmidt said in an interview.

The company operates Brazil's biggest biodiesel plant with a capacity of 900 million liters annually.

"We know there will be a peak of petroleum consumption in 2030," said Hammerschmidt, whose grandfather founded the firm as a small gas station network in southern Brazil in the 1950s.

Last December, the Brazilian government rose a mandatory biofuel mix into diesel to 14% and set March 2025 as the deadline to raise it to 15%.

Potencial, which also keeps interests in fuel distribution and logistics, is gradually modernizing its own truck fleet to run on biodiesel.

As demand for cleaner fuels grows, Hammerschmidt predicts overall group sales reaching 12 billion reais ($2.41 billion) in 2024, up from an estimated 10 billion reais for 2023.

Currently, biodiesel accounts for about 35% of Potencial's revenues, he said.

The firm began producing biodiesel 12 years ago and is currently investing 2 billion reais ($403.14 million) to build a new soybean crusher to make soymeal and also soyoil, which will used as a raw material to produce more biodiesel.

The new facility is being funded with Potencial's own cash, the executive said.

Brazil's climate and abundant crops to make biofuels, including soybeans for biodiesel and sugarcane and corn for ethanol, are a magnet to deep-pocketed investors.

Foreigners including Cargill and China's Cofco compete with Potencial in the biodiesel sector. To get a piece of the action, multinationals have bought existing plants or built them from the ground, like ADM did in Mato Grosso state years ago.

Potencial's strong and debt-light balance sheet, which is audited, makes it a prime candidate for a takeover.

"Every day someone knocks on the door saying: your company is an acquisition target," Hammerschmidt said. But the company is not for sale. "It's not only money that moves us. My dad built this from scratch." (Reporting by Ana Mano Editing by Ros Russell)