Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas company Petrobras has begun testing the Cardano blockchain in two fuel-tracking research projects, CoinDesk reported on Sept. 30. The company plans to use the technology to verify the origin of fuels’ environmental benefits, prevent double counting of emissions reductions and track fuel through different stages of its life cycle.

Projects cover aviation fuel and diesel

One project focuses on sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, an alternative to conventional jet fuel with a lower carbon footprint. The other covers Diesel R, a Petrobras diesel made partly from renewable feedstocks, including vegetable oils and animal fats.

In the aviation-fuel project, Cardano will record the origin of an environmental benefit, its recipient and when the benefit is used. The system is intended to prevent multiple companies from counting the same emissions reduction.

A passenger will be able to enter departure and arrival airports, calculate the corresponding fuel benefit and receive a certificate linked to the original fuel certificate.

The Diesel R project involves recording data at each stage of the fuel’s production, transportation and use. That record could provide a history of the fuel’s movement and potentially simplify companies’ Scope 3 reporting, which covers indirect emissions across supply chains and among customers.

Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, said Brazil was already using Cardano in the public and industrial sectors.

“Brazil has been one of the most consistent adopters of Cardano, from SERPRO in government to SENAI in industry. It’s great to see Petrobras, one of the largest firms in the region, continue to see value in on-chain provenance and traceability,” Gregaard said.

Systems remain in research phase

Both Petrobras projects remain in the research phase. The diesel model is described as proposed, and the company has not disclosed how much fuel the systems will cover or when they could be scaled.

Petrobras previously explored blockchain and cryptocurrency capabilities through a bitcoin mining and tokenization project. It also studied using blockchain to streamline business processes and support a transition to low-carbon solutions.

Separately, the Cardano Foundation presented the next stage of its roadmap in September 2025. The roadmap focuses on six areas, including decentralized finance, Web3, governance decentralization and stronger marketing.

Cardano also joined x402, a payment standard that allows applications and artificial intelligence agents to pay directly for data or computing services at the point of use. Initial software for processing those payments has been tested on the Cardano testnet, but commercial use on the mainnet has not yet been demonstrated.

Source: Incrypted