Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Sunday, Jun 11, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Sunday, Jun 11, 2006 |
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Outlook Industry & Economy - Non-conventional Energy Government - Policy Reliance opposes mandatory blending
Harish Damodaran
New Delhi , June 10
Reliance Industries Ltd has opposed mandatory ethanol blending of petrol. This is even as the Petroleum Ministry has asked private oil retailers, including RIL and Essar, to join the gasohol programme effective from October 1. RIL's opposition to mandatory blending comes out clearly from the presentation made to the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, on May 31, regarding its planned foray into sugarcane processing. Till then, it was assumed that the company's proposed three plants of 10,000 to12,000 tonnes daily cane crushing capacity in Maharashtra were mainly to supply ethanol for its captive petrol blending requirements.
Ethanol requirement
But now it emerges that these plants would basically produce rectified spirit/ethanol for the mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) facility of SM Dyechem Ltd at Kurkumbh (Pune) that RIL had acquired in January 2005. According to the presentation, the MEG facility's annual ethanol requirement is 14 crore litres, which mills in Maharashtra are not able to supply after meeting the needs of potable alcohol (12 crore litres) and industrial chemical (18 crore litres) units.
Ethanol blending
As a result, RIL had to import about five crore litres in 2005-06. This, in turn, has become unviable with spiralling global prices. In the event of five per cent ethanol blending being made compulsory, it would consume an additional 15 crore litres, which mills in Maharashtra cannot supply. "No mandatory blending should be introduced till alcohol production is increased in the country," the presentation has said, while advocating alternate substrates such as sweet sorghum and sugarbeet for ethanol production.
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