Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil and gas company, is experimenting with Cardano blockchain technology through two research projects focused on tracing lower-carbon fuel claims and avoiding duplicate emissions accounting. The Cardano Foundation announced the initiatives Wednesday and shared details with CoinDesk.
The first project centers on sustainable aviation fuel, which offers a lower-carbon alternative to conventional jet fuel while remaining compatible with existing aircraft and airport infrastructure. The second involves Diesel R, Petrobras’ diesel produced partly with renewable inputs, including vegetable oils and animal fats.
Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, told CoinDesk that Brazil has been a consistent adopter of Cardano technology, citing government technology provider SERPRO and industrial organization SENAI. He said Petrobras’ participation adds another major Brazilian institution exploring blockchain-based provenance and traceability.
Gregaard also pointed to growing institutional activity around Cardano, including the integration of x402 and Fireblocks’ support for Cardano Native Tokens. He said these developments could provide additional reasons for businesses to examine potential enterprise applications of the technology.
The aviation project is designed to address the accounting challenges associated with a system called book-and-claim. Under this model, an airline can purchase the environmental benefit generated by sustainable aviation fuel even if the physical fuel is consumed somewhere else.
Because the environmental attribute can be separated from the actual fuel, a reliable record is needed to establish ownership and track when a benefit has been used. This helps prevent the same emissions reduction from being claimed by multiple parties.
The proposed Cardano application would create a record of the environmental benefit’s origin, identify the recipient and document when the benefit was claimed. This provides a traceable history intended to reduce the risk of duplicate claims.
For example, a passenger could enter their departure and arrival airports and calculate the associated fuel benefit. They could then receive a certificate connecting that allocation to the certificate associated with the original fuel.
The Diesel R initiative would instead focus on tracking information throughout the fuel’s lifecycle. Data gathered during production, transportation and consumption could be linked together to provide a record of the fuel’s movement and use.
This type of traceability could help businesses calculate Scope 3 emissions, which include indirect emissions generated throughout their supply chains and customer networks. Gathering that information can be challenging because the relevant data is often controlled by other companies.
Neither project has moved beyond the research stage. The Diesel R concept is still described as proposed, and Petrobras has not disclosed the amount of fuel that could eventually be covered or provided a schedule for wider deployment.
The development comes as Cardano has also joined x402, a payment standard that enables applications and AI agents to pay automatically for data or computing resources as they request them. The related payment-processing software has been tested on Cardano’s pre-production network, while commercial use on the live blockchain has yet to be demonstrated.
