India’s Grain Ethanol Manufacturers Association highlights lack of long-term offtake agreements

In India, Chinimandi reports the Grain Ethanol Manufacturers Association (GEMA) has warned the Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister that its members do not have Long Term Offtake Agreements (LTOAs) with oil marketing companies (OMCs) which leads to inherent instability for them. Many of them were established with government grants and soft loans to fill the gap left by sugarcane-based ethanol when cane becomes unstable, but instead the instability has been shifted to the grain ethanol producers who in the current season only 50-64% of the allocation in Q1 and Q2.