In India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd’s commissioning of its second generation ethanol bio refinery will start building the proposed plant this week in Baulsingha and is expected to be completed by 2020. The refinery will use rice straw as its feedstock.
“This is the first bio fuel plant in the country where ethanol will be produced from rice straw. The refinery will have a capacity to produce three crore litres (30 million) of fuel grade ethanol per year by utilizing aorund two lakh tonnes (200,000) of rice straw. Ethanol will be blended with petrol and used as fuel”, Sanjib Paul, BPCL’s Chief General Manager told Petrol Plaza.
Official sources told Petrol Plaza that they expect that this plant will help to create the biomass availability, which currently is set at about 120 to 160 million metric tonnes per year to meet the country’s new 20% ethanol blending by 2030 mandate.