Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, chairman of Indian Oil, revealed the plans to Reuters at this year’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference, but did not provide a timeline. “To attain sustainability, bio-based feedstocks such as bio-naphtha and bio-ethanol are being envisaged as the natural transition for the petrochemical industry,” he said.
Bio-naphtha is produced from treatment of used vegetable and cooking oils during biodiesel processing. Several European companies are already producing bio-attributed ethylene in this manner
“It is under research and development at our Faridabad facility in northern India… we have kept the used cooking oil pathway open but we’re trying to get it via bio-ethanol [as well],” Indian Oil’s executive director of petrochemicals, A. S. Sahney, told Reuters.