Cardano News: Cardano Helps Petrobras Track Low-Carbon Jet Fuel and Diesel

Brazilian state-controlled energy company Petrobras is testing Cardano blockchain technology in two research projects focused on tracking lower-carbon fuels and ensuring emissions reductions are not counted more than once. The Cardano Foundation announced the initiatives Wednesday and provided details to CoinDesk.

The first project covers sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a lower-emissions alternative to traditional jet fuel that can be used with existing aircraft and airport infrastructure. The second centers on Diesel R, a Petrobras diesel product that incorporates renewable feedstocks, including vegetable oils and animal fats.

Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, told CoinDesk that Brazil has repeatedly adopted Cardano technology, pointing to government technology provider SERPRO and industrial organization SENAI as examples. He said Petrobras’ involvement highlights the value a major regional company places on blockchain-based traceability and on-chain records of provenance.

Gregaard also pointed to Cardano’s recent involvement with x402 and Fireblocks’ addition of support for Cardano Native Tokens as signs of expanding institutional interest. He said these developments provide enterprises with additional reasons to explore blockchain applications.

For the aviation project, Cardano is being considered for a book-and-claim system, which allows an airline to purchase the environmental benefit associated with SAF even when the physical fuel is consumed somewhere else.

Because the physical fuel and its environmental benefit can be separated, the system needs to establish who owns the benefit and when it has been used. This helps prevent the same emissions reduction from being claimed by more than one party.

The proposed Cardano application would record where the benefit originated, who received it and when the claim was made. A passenger, for example, could enter their departure and arrival airports, calculate the associated fuel benefit and receive a certificate connected to the certificate for the underlying fuel allocation.

The Diesel R project takes a broader supply-chain approach. It would record information as the fuel moves through production, transportation and eventual use, creating a connected history of the product’s journey.

The resulting data could also assist companies with Scope 3 emissions reporting, which covers indirect emissions generated throughout a business’s wider value chain. Such reporting can be difficult because relevant information is often held by suppliers, customers or other outside organizations.

Neither initiative has moved beyond the research stage. Petrobras has not disclosed potential fuel volumes or provided a timetable for broader deployment, while the Diesel R system is still described as a proposed model.

Separately, Cardano joined the x402 ecosystem this month. The payment standard allows applications and AI agents to automatically pay for services such as data and computing resources. Cardano’s initial payment-processing software has been tested on its pre-production network, although commercial use on the live blockchain has not yet been demonstrated.