State-owned Indian Oil Corp plans to build the world's first refinery off-gas-to-bioethanol plant at its Panipat refinery in the third quarter of fiscal 2018-2019, running from April to March, IOC said in an emailed reply late Monday.
The plant was expected to be complete by the third quarter of fiscal 2019-2020, IOC added.
IOC and LanzaTech, a carbon recycling company, signed a statement of intent to build the 40 million liters/year (35,000 mt/year) plant at IOC's 15 million mt/year (300,000 b/d) Panipat refinery.
The ethanol produced from the plant will be blended with gasoline, and this will help IOC meet its ethanol blending mandate.
As part of its commitment to the Paris Agreement, India plans to reduce its carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 33% from 2005 levels.
Conversion of off-gas to ethanol consumes CO2 present in these gases, and the ethanol produced is expected to cut emissions by more than 70% compared with conventional gasoline, IOC said.
India has a 10% ethanol blending mandate in place. As it does not allow imports of fuel ethanol, the blending rate largely depends on the availability of sugarcane.
In 2016, India's fuel ethanol production was estimated at 1,150 million liters, according to Platts Kingsman data, resulting in an actual blending rate of around 4.07%.
