India Oil Cos all set to sell ethanol blended fuel

NEW DELHI - India’s state run oil companies all set to resume ethanol blended petroleum products sale after two year gap as the government hiked sharply the minimum support price of ethanol.

ndia’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had raised the minimum support price of ethanol from Rs 19.50 to Rs 27 per litter. It is mandatory for oil companies to blend petroleum with 5% ethanol in the country.

However, oil companies failed to add ethanol for two years on non availability of the green fuel and low MSP.

State-run oil companies recently accepted about 710 million liters of ethanol from local companies after inviting supplies of 1.05 billion liters, a senior official with the Indian Sugar Mills Association said.

Unlike in many other countries, ethanol is produced in India from molasses, a by-product of sugar, rather than sugarcane juice or other food crops such as corn. Over the past two years, however, many manufacturers preferred to use molasses to produce rectified spirit and industrial chemicals due to the low price of ethanol.

source: commodityonline