ICM to Supply Technology for Atvos' First Corn Ethanol Facility in Brazil

ICM has signed an agreement with Atvos to supply its proprietary process technology and engineering services for the company's first corn ethanol facility, to be integrated into Atvos' existing Santa Luzia sugarcane industrial complex in Nova Alvorada do Sul, Mato Grosso do Sul. When complete, the facility is expected to process approximately 642,000 metric tons of corn annually, producing 273 million liters of ethanol, alongside 183,000 metric tons of distillers dried grains with solubles and 13,000 metric tons of corn oil per year.

 

Why Co-Locating Corn Ethanol With Sugarcane Solves a Seasonality Problem

 

Sugarcane-based ethanol production is inherently seasonal, since sugarcane can only be harvested during specific months of the year, meaning a sugarcane-only ethanol facility typically operates at reduced or halted capacity outside the harvest season. Integrating corn ethanol production into the same complex addresses that seasonality gap directly, since corn crops in Brazil's Mato Grosso do Sul region can be harvested at different times of year than sugarcane, allowing the combined facility to maintain production activity across a broader portion of the calendar year rather than sitting idle during the sugarcane off-season.

Atvos vice president of technology Alexandre Maganhato said the investment "builds on the strengths of our Santa Luzia operation and expands the value we can create from our existing assets," a framing that reflects the underlying commercial logic: rather than building an entirely new, standalone corn ethanol facility elsewhere, integrating the new production line into an already-operating sugarcane complex allows the company to reuse existing infrastructure, utilities and logistics networks rather than duplicating that capital investment for a separate facility.

 

Why the Co-Products Matter for the Project's Overall Resource Efficiency

 

Beyond ethanol itself, the facility is expected to generate 183,000 metric tons of distillers dried grains with solubles annually, a protein and fiber-rich animal feed byproduct of the corn ethanol production process, alongside 13,000 metric tons of corn oil. Generating these co-products from the same corn feedstock used to produce ethanol means the facility extracts additional economic and nutritional value from each unit of corn processed, rather than treating the ethanol production process as generating a single output with the remaining organic material simply discarded as waste.

That co-product generation reflects a structural characteristic of modern corn ethanol facilities more broadly, where the fermentation and distillation process used to produce ethanol leaves behind residual grain material that retains nutritional value suitable for animal feed, and separating out the corn oil component provides an additional saleable product stream from the same processing operation.

ICM president and CEO Chris Mitchell described the specific technology package supplied, including Selective Milling Technology, Base Tricanter System, FST Next Gen and FOT Oil Recovery, as supporting "year-round renewable fuel production while enabling high-value co-products," directly tying the technology's function to both the seasonality solution and the co-product generation the project targets.

 

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Why This Signals a Broader Diversification Strategy Within Brazil's Bioenergy Sector

 

Brazil has one of the world's most established bioenergy sectors, built substantially around sugarcane ethanol production developed over several decades. Atvos' move to add corn as a second feedstock within an existing sugarcane operation reflects a diversification strategy increasingly relevant as agricultural commodity markets and regional crop production patterns evolve, giving the company access to a broader feedstock base rather than remaining dependent entirely on sugarcane supply and pricing dynamics.

Maganhato noted that diversifying into corn also creates an opportunity to "strengthen and expand our partnerships with sugarcane suppliers, contributing to social and regional development," framing the expansion as extending economic benefit to the broader regional agricultural supply chain rather than solely benefiting the company's own production capacity. Mitchell described the project as ICM's "first co-located corn ethanol installation in Brazil," positioning this specific agreement as a potential template the company could look to replicate with other Brazilian sugarcane producers seeking similar diversification and year-round production capability.

 

What Comes Next

 

Whether the integrated facility achieves its projected annual output of 273 million liters of ethanol alongside its stated co-product volumes once fully operational, and whether this co-location model proves replicable across other existing sugarcane facilities in Brazil facing similar seasonality constraints, will determine how significant a template this project becomes for feedstock diversification within Brazil's broader bioenergy sector.