Petrol blended with 20% ethanol from April 1, says Hardeep Singh Puri

Says India will contribute 25% to global ethanol demand by 2040

The phased roll-out of E20 (20 per cent ethanol blending in gasoline) will begin on April 1, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said. The fuel will be available at select outlets and will not require changes to car engines, officials told Business Standard.

The proposed roll-out will give further impetus to the government’s plans of achieving the level of 20 per cent ethanol blending in the overall petrol supply in the country by ethanol supply year (ESY) 2025-2026. The deadline for achieving this had been brought forward from 2030 as the supply of raw ethanol has grown at a fast clip.

On Tuesday, Puri said India was on track to contribute 25 per cent of global ethanol demand by 2040. India has increased the ethanol blending in petrol from 1.53 per cent in 2013-14 to 10.17 per cent in 2022. To achieve 20 per cent blending by 2025, the country needs 10.2-11 billion litres of ethanol.

This would require a production capacity of around 14.5 billion litres because some production has to be kept aside for starch and chemical industry, industry sources had earlier told Business Standard.

Of this, around 7.6 billion litres of ethanol will have to be produced from sugarcane while another 7.2 billion litres will have to come from grain- and non-grain-based sources such as rice stubble and so on, they had stressed.

It added that oil-marketing companies are targeting the installation of alternative fuel stations, such as electric vehicle charging, compressed natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied natural gas, and compressed biogas (CBG) at 22,000 retail outlets by May 2024, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said in a release.

It added the Centre has increased the rate for CBG plants under the SATAT scheme from Rs 46 per kg to Rs 54 per kg.

The government is also investing Rs 19,744 crore into the National Green Hydrogen Mission for developing green hydrogen production capacity of at least 5 MMT (million metric tonnes) per annum.

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