Backed by Emirati Mubadala Capital, a Brazil-based venture is working on what could be one of the new and rare examples of fruits providing power for commercial aircraft.
In Brazil’s Minas Gerais state north of Sao Paulo, more than 200 researchers are racing to develop and commercialize an oil-rich fruit so that it can one day power jetliners, according to an exclusive report by Bloomberg News, published on Tuesday.
Agronomists, biotechnicians and automation experts are the brains behind a $3 billion project to plant the little-known macauba palm tree across as many as 144,000 hectares (356,000 acres) of land, an area slightly larger than the city of Los Angeles and then harvest it for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the report suggests.
Once the first trees planted start bearing fruit, likely in 2030, energy and biofuels company Acelen Renovaveis plans to begin processing macauba oil at a biorefinery it’s building in another part of Brazil.
Acelen Renovaveis, which is fully owned by Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Capital, hopes to solidify Brazil’s role as one of the world’s top producers of biofuels and a leading supplier of clean jet fuel by industrializing the exotic fruit.
The company says its biorefinery under construction in Bahia state could eventually produce 20,000 barrels of SAF a day. That would translate to a big jump in worldwide output, which in 2025 was 41,000 barrels a day.
'Fruit of the future'
Macauba is indigenous to South America and is naturally adapted to the semi-arid regions where Acelen Renovaveis is planting its trees.
The individual fruit is roughly the size of a small plum and has a fleshy pulp, which is what will be processed. According to the company, macauba can deliver seven to 10 times more oil per hectare than soybeans.
"We call it the fruit of the future," Victor Barra, director of agribusiness, said in a greenhouse full of macauba clones and seedlings.
"It’s literally a power plant, an energy plant."
The trees in Minas Gerais will grow on degraded pasture so they don’t compete with food production. Brazil has roughly 40 million hectares of degraded pasture. With that potential at hand, Mubadala Capital, the alternative asset management arm of wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co., has longer-term plans for up to five biorefineries in Brazil, Bloomberg reports.
Reports in recent years, including the one from Reuters in 2024, suggested that Mubadala Capital intended to invest about $13.5 billion in a major biofuels project in Brazil over the next decade.
Despite offering the promise of sustainability and at times when aviation fuel prices are on the rise, SAF's share of all aviation fuel globally was at a shy 0.6% last year, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg.