India can't use own biodiesel

Hyderabad-based Naturol Bioenergy has been shipping biodiesel to the EU and the United States since June because India can't blend the alternative fuel into gasoline and diesel yet.

Two other Indian biodiesel companies are expected to follow Naturol's lead shortly.

Naturol began commercially producing in April out of its Rs. 140 crore ($1.4 billion USD) facility, the first biodiesel plant both in the state of Andhra Pradesh and in India.

Located in the eastern port city Kankinada, which is designated as a special economic zone, the plant shipped its first 10,000 metric tons (2.6 million gallons) to Europe two months later.

The biodiesel facility can produce 100,000 metric tons of biodiesel annually and uses a blend of palm oil, rapeseed, jatropha, pongamia and vegetable oil for its biodiesel.

The company has reduced its dependence on palm oil for biodiesel production by 20 percent by substituting fatty acids. Naturol plans to further cut its use of palm oil by an additional 40 percent next year.

Last month India and the EU upheld biofuel policies requiring the alternative fuels to come from non-edible crops (see India, EU affirm new biofuels). At the moment, however, India can only support blending ethanol into gasoline and diesel.

Companies such as Mumbai-based Bharat Renewable Energy and the government-owned Hindustan Petroleum have already planted more than a million acres of jatropha to provide a million metric tons of biodiesel by 2015 (see $480M Indian refinery signals jatropha shift?).

Another Hyderabad-based biodiesel company, Cleancities Biodiesel, began producing commercially last week and expects to start shipping biodiesel to the United States later this month.

Cleancities has the largest biodiesel plant in India, with a capacity of 250,000 metric tons (66 million gallons). The facility is based in the Visakhapatnam special economic zone, also in Andhra Pradesh, and currently uses a blend of palm oil, jatropha oil and soya oil for its biodiesel.

A third company, the Kolkata-based Emami Group, has established a biodiesel plant in West Bengal’s port city of Haldia. Emami has not announced when the plant will start commercial production.

The Rs 150 crore ($1.5 billion USD) facility will process used cooking oil and palm oil to produce biodiesel.

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