State-run oil marketing companies plan to buy 40% more ethanol to meet 20% blend target
oil marketing companies plan to increase their ethanol purchase by about 40% to 9.7 billion litre in the current ethanol supply year to meet the national target of 20% blending in petrol.
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India aims to blend 20% ethanol into petrol by 2025 as part of its effort to reduce reliance on imported oil. In the ethanol supply year 2023-24, which began in November 2023 and ended in October 2024, the average national blending was 14.6%, with 7.07 billion litre of ethanol used up for the programme, according to the oil ministry data. State oil companies, which control about 90% of the petrol retail market, purchased 6.79 billion litre for the blending.
In the current ethanol supply year that began in November 2024, state-run oil companies plan to purchase 9.73 billion litre for the blending programme, an official said. This would include 3.91 billion litre of ethanol produced from sugarcane-related raw materials. The balance of 5.82 billion litre is expected to be sourced from grain-based processors. This would take the share of grain-based ethanol in the blending programme to 60%, compared to 27% in the ethanol supply year 2022-23.
A slew of government policy measures, including attractive ethanol prices, capital support for setting up production facilities and assured offtake, has led to a boom in grain-based ethanol production. A few years back, the government permitted the use of maize as well as damaged and surplus rice for producing ethanol. This helped more states to contribute to the
