08/07/2011 (Bloomberg) - BSBios Industria e Comercio de Biodiesel Sul Brasil SA, a Brazilian biodiesel producer, may expand into the U.S. to tap the country’s growing market.

The company’s first U.S. production facility is expected to go into operation in August, President Erasmo Carlos Battistella said by telephone.

Battistella said the “small” facility near Miami will help the company evaluate how to approach the North American market, where demand for the renewable fuel is increasing.

“The U.S. is a big consumer of fuels and it’s incentivizing the production of biofuels,” he said. “We see the market as an opportunity.”

Fuel distributors in the U.S. will mix 3.8 billion liters (1 billion gallons) of biodiesel next year into their standard diesel fuel, Roberto Rodriguez Labastida, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s London office, said today by phone.

That’s up more than fourfold from the 840 million liters (222 million gallons) consumed in the U.S. in 2010, according to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

BSBios’s Miami plant will produce biodiesel from various raw materials including soybean oil and palm oil. Battistella wouldn’t discuss the size or cost of the facility.

BSBios is also expanding in Brazil into other applications for biofuels. It announced July 4 a partnership with Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4) to study new biodiesel, ethanol and specialty chemicals projects. As part of the arrangement, Petrobras bought a 50 percent stake in one of BSBios’s biodiesel plants.