Indian refiners planning to ramp up ethanol storage

The state-run fuel retailers in India are considering increasing ethanol storage capacity by 51 per cent, as the country is targeting to double the biofuel’s blending with gasoline to 20 per cent by 2025 according to a director at Indian Oil Corp refinery.

India is one of the largest importers of oil which relies on foreign suppliers to meet more than 80 percent of its demand.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the COP26 climate summit held at Glasgow has pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2070. In order to fulfil that target govt is now encouraging industries to switch to go for cleaner options including renewable and biofuels to cut carbon footprint.

According some sources, India is close to achieving its target of 10 percent ethanol blended gasoline in this fiscal year ending March 31. Last year, India brought forward its target of selling 20 percent ethanol blended fuel across the country by five years to 2025, with sales beginning in some parts of the country from April 2023. India’s federal finance ministry has proposed a tax of 2 rupees a liters on unblended petrol from October.

State-run companies Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp own storage to hold 178 million litre of ethanol. Currently, about 4.30 billion litres of ethanol can be handled annually considering 15 days of coverage period. With tankage of 446.4 million litres by 2025, about 10.6 billion liters of ethanol can be handled annually.