Petrobras Puts Brazil’s SAF Credits on Cardano

Petrobras and the Cardano Foundation delivered two research apps on 30 September 2026 that record low-carbon fuel claims on Cardano. One mints a CS-SAF token for sustainable aviation fuel. The other plants digital checkpoints on Diesel R, the company’s renewable-content diesel.

Both remain in research, with no commercial date. They arrive as Brasilia has written a book-and-claim certificate, also called CS-SAF, into aviation law for a 1% emissions cut that starts in 2027.

Petrobras Mints CS-SAF Tokens on Cardano

The Cardano Foundation, a Swiss not-for-profit that promotes the public Cardano chain, said the teams had delivered two blockchain applications with Petrobras and PUC-Rio’s Ledger Labs. The work sits inside an R&D collaboration, not a fuel-sales launch.

On the aviation side, a physical SAF certificate is checked against CORSIA and other recognised standards, then turned into a token. The case study names that token CS-SAF. It can be minted, transferred, looked up and retired, so a claim is supposed to happen only once.

Book-and-claim is the model underneath. The environmental benefit is split from the physical fuel, so an airline, a company or a passenger can be assigned the benefit even when the SAF is produced or burned somewhere else. Cardano holds the trail of origin, assignee and a single claim.

Today, we announce two new initiatives with @Petrobras.

As part of an ongoing R&D collaboration with Petrobras and PUC-Rio, the teams have delivered two blockchain applications focused on sustainable aviation fuel and Diesel R, Petrobras' brand of renewable fuel.

The work adds…

— Cardano Foundation (@Cardano_CF) September 30, 2026

The designed path is a five-step loop from paper certificate to a burned token. It is a software description of a research system, not a count of live flights.

THE CS-SAF CLAIM PATH

• Certificate check: SAF certificates are checked against CORSIA and other recognised standards before they enter the system.
• Token mint: Verified certificates are minted as standardised tokens with traceable metadata.
• Allocation: Tokens are assigned to airlines or passenger journeys from emissions calculations.
• Traveler app: Passengers can claim tokens through a dedicated app and receive a certificate of the offset.
• On-chain retirement: Claimed tokens are permanently retired so they cannot be used again.

That is the whole product. No jet fuel moves because a token moved. The public chain is there to make a second claim on the same benefit harder to hide.

Why Brazil Needs a Certificate That Can Travel

On 12 August 2026 the federal government regulated ProBioQAV, the National Sustainable Aviation Fuel Program created by the Fuel of the Future law, Law 14.993/2024. The Mines and Energy Ministry wrote the decree with the Ports and Airports Ministry. Domestic airline operators must cut greenhouse gases through SAF from 2027, on a ladder that reaches 10% from 2037.

The same text adopts Book and Claim. An airline may buy the environmental attribute even when the sustainable fuel is made or used in another place. To keep a handle on that split, SAF may generate a Certificado de Sustentabilidade do SAF, abbreviated CS-SAF, so origin and attributes can be followed. The Cardano token uses the same name.

ANP will set the rules for certification, traceability and the environmental certificates. ANAC will police whether airlines meet the targets. Both agencies have until 18 December 2026 to publish the extra norms the program needs. Co-processed fuels made in Brazil may count if they meet the rules. There is no single mandated feedstock or technology.

BRAZIL’S SAF EMISSIONS TARGETS

Airlines may cover a slice of those targets with low-carbon aviation fuel, RenovaBio CBIOs, international SAF certificates and carbon credits from the Brazilian emissions-trading system. The cap on that mix is 15% of the target in 2027 and 2028, 10% in 2029, and 5% from 2030. The government says the design is meant to stop environmental benefits from being counted twice. A public token named CS-SAF is one proposed way to keep that promise once the 1% emissions cut starting in 2027 is live. ANP has not said it will accept an on-chain token as the legal certificate.

Scope 3 Reports and the Diesel R Paper Gap

The second app follows Diesel R, Petrobras’s brand of diesel with renewable content. Refineries co-process petroleum diesel with vegetable oil or animal fat. The blend can be sold at different shares, including R5 Diesel, with 5% renewable content, or R10 Diesel, with 10%.

Petrobras says the renewable portion, from vegetable oil, cuts greenhouse gases by up to 90% compared with other diesel oils. The fuel is meant to run in existing engines and tanks. Presidente Getúlio Vargas Refinery (Repar), which produces and sells R Diesel, holds an ISCC certificate covering raw materials and the product’s life-cycle emissions. Sales go to distributors, not to retail pumps directly.

The Cardano model, built with PUC-Rio, drops digital checkpoints at production, transport and use, and stitches those points into one lifecycle record. The Foundation’s pitch is Scope 3 reporting: the indirect emissions that sit in a company’s wider chain and usually live in supplier, logistics and other outside systems.

DIESEL R AT A GLANCE

• How it is made: Petroleum diesel is co-processed with vegetable oil or animal fat in Petrobras refineries.
• Blend steps: R5 carries 5% renewable content; R10 carries 10%.
• Claimed cut: Up to 90% less greenhouse gas on the renewable portion, according to Petrobras.
• Certificate: Repar holds ISCC certification for R Diesel production and sale.

A truck that burned Diesel R still burned a mostly fossil blend. The chain does not change that. It tries to give a buyer a file they can hand to an auditor when the emissions sit three companies away from the refinery gate.

The IATA SAF Registry Is Already Live

Cardano is late to a market that already keeps books. The International Air Transport Association’s SAF Registry went live in April 2025 and was released to the Civil Aviation Decarbonization Organization, a Montreal non-profit, to run. IATA said the registry lets airlines claim SAF purchases against climate duties and tracks environmental benefits along the value chain, including for corporate customers, without shipping scarce fuel across the world.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials runs a Book & Claim Registry that turns certified fuel attributes into Book & Claim Units, which can be transferred and retired with a statement. RSB has used that system for co-processed SAF. ISCC, the same house that certified Repar’s Diesel R, published final book-and-claim guidance for SAF on 22 September 2026, eight days before the Cardano Foundation’s Petrobras note.

WHO ALREADY TRACKS THE SAME CREDIT

A fourth ledger does not, by itself, put more SAF into Brazilian airports. It gives Petrobras a Petrobras-shaped record of a claim that other clubs already try to police. If ANP later treats the on-chain token as the legal CS-SAF, the oil company would be writing the certificate it also sells. If ANP does not, the tokens are a parallel trail that auditors may or may not accept.

Inside Petrobras, SERPRO and PUC-Rio

The 30 September note is a product drop on a relationship that started as training. On 20 December 2023 the Cardano Foundation said its Academy would run through Petrobras University for the company’s more than 40,000 staff, with certificates on completion and an NFT for the first 500 people who finished.

On 6 March 2025 the Foundation partnered with SERPRO, Brazil’s federal IT company. SERPRO has about 8,000 staff, including 2,000 developers, and says it supports 90% of the federal administration’s structural systems. Rafael Fraga, the Foundation’s LATAM business development lead, said he had also facilitated the Petrobras work. On 15 April 2025 the Foundation added PUC-Rio and its Ledger Labs, pointing back to energy-sector work already underway with Petrobras.

On 11 August 2026 Fraga posted that Cardano Foundation Week at Blockchain Rio had opened at Petrobras headquarters, with SERPRO, Transpetro, PUC-Rio, the securities regulator CVM and others in the room. The Foundation’s August recap said Petrobras had opened its headquarters and that the training tie dated to 2023.

CARDANO IN BRAZIL

1. 20 December 2023: Cardano Academy workshops open to Petrobras staff through Petrobras University, with an NFT for the first 500 finishers.
2. 6 March 2025: Cardano Foundation and SERPRO sign a technical cooperation deal on blockchain training for federal IT staff.
3. 15 April 2025: Foundation and PUC-Rio announce an R&D collaboration, including Ledger Labs work with Petrobras on energy.
4. 11 August 2026: Cardano Foundation Week opens at Petrobras headquarters in Rio.
5. 12 August 2026: ProBioQAV decree creates a national CS-SAF certificate and a Book and Claim path for aviation.
6. 30 September 2026: Foundation, Petrobras and PUC-Rio present the SAF and Diesel R research apps on Cardano.

That sequence is a public-sector courtship, not a sudden oil-and-crypto stunt. The fuel apps are the first artifacts that look like a market instrument rather than a classroom NFT.

What Travelers Receive From the SAF App

The aviation build is not only for airline desks. Travelers enter departure and destination airports, get a calculated CS-SAF amount, and receive a digital credential tied to the original fuel certificate. The Foundation’s case study says the app records route, distance and allocation, and that claimed tokens are retired on-chain.

That is a passenger-level copy of the same split the decree allows at airline level. A person on a São Paulo-Rio hop could hold a credential for SAF burned, or booked, on a different route. The molecule and the claim do not have to share an airport. The case study frames CS-SAF tokens minted on Cardano as turning a stated benefit into something an auditor can look up.

The energy transition will depend as much on trust as it does on new fuels. As value chains become more complex, proving where environmental data comes from, how it moves and who can rely on it becomes critical. Public blockchain gives us the opportunity to make that trust part of the system by design, providing industries with a shared, verifiable foundation for the next generation of energy markets.

Rafael Fraga, LATAM Business Development Lead, Cardano Foundation

Trust, in this design, is a retired token. It is not extra SAF at a Brazilian gate. People reading the announcement as Cardano entering the fuel hose itself are reading the wrong layer. The research stores the claim. The fuel can stay where it was made.

ANP Still Has to Write the Rules

The Foundation’s case study lists results such as immutable records and one-time retirement. The press note from the same day is plainer: two applications from an ongoing R&D collaboration, with no timetable to sell, to plug into ANAC filings, or to talk to the CADO registry. Those are different documents. The working facts are the press note’s.

WHAT WE KNOW

• Two research apps: One tokenizes SAF attributes as CS-SAF; one checkpoints Diesel R from plant to use.
• Shared name: Brazil’s August decree also calls the legal SAF certificate CS-SAF.
• Mandate clock: Domestic operators face a 1% SAF-linked emissions cut in 2027, holding at 1% in 2028, then stepping up to 10% from 2037.
• Older ledgers: IATA’s registry has been live since 3 April 2025; RSB and ISCC already police book-and-claim on their own paper.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Commercial date: Neither Petrobras nor the Foundation has set one.
• Legal acceptance: ANP has not said an on-chain CS-SAF token will satisfy the national certificate.
• Registry bridges: There is no public plan to retire a Cardano token against a CADO, RSB or ISCC entry.
• Passenger scale: The traveler app is described in the case study; no usage figures were published.

ANP and ANAC still have until 18 December 2026 to write the operating rules. Until those pages exist, Petrobras has a named token, a named legal certificate, and a research chain that tries to make the first look like the second. The 2027 cut does not wait on Cardano. It waits on fuel, on certificates, and on whether Brasilia treats a public token as a filing.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a corporate research project and on Brazilian fuel rules. It is informational only and does not constitute investment, legal, or carbon-accounting advice. Readers should consult a qualified energy-compliance lawyer, accountant, or licensed financial adviser before making decisions about fuel credits, tokens, or emissions reports. Figures and project statuses follow the company, foundation, and government pages cited, which can change as ANP, ANAC, and the research teams issue further rules or results.