10 billion liters of ethanol needed to achieve the target of 20 percent blending in petrol

05-Sep-2024 01:28 PM

New Delhi. The central government has set a target of increasing the blending of ethanol in petrol (gasoline) to 20 percent by 2025-26, which has currently reached only 13 percent.

To achieve this target of 20 percent blending, more than 10 billion liters of ethanol will be required, which is almost twice the amount produced in the country during the last marketing season.

During the current year, 1.35 billion liters of ethanol was produced by distilleries using about 35 lakh tonnes of maize.

This amount of maize used in ethanol production was about four times more than the previous marketing season.

However, the production of ethanol from sugarcane is expected to increase in the 2024-25 marketing season as the government has abolished quantitative control on it.

But even then the production of sugarcane ethanol is not expected to exceed 5 billion liters because millers will also have to keep sugar production at a reasonable level.

The government is giving priority to ensuring adequate supply and availability of sugar in the domestic market. For this, it has also banned the commercial export of sugar.

This means that the production of corn-based ethanol will have to be increased to 3 billion liters and for this about 80 lakh tonnes of corn will be required.

Such a huge additional stock of corn will not be available in the country because the animal base-poultry feed industry and starch manufacturing industry will also need corn in large quantities.