The Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Sh Dharmendra Pradhan on August 10, 2019 released the Expression for Interest (EOI) by National Oil Marketing Companies (IOC, HPCL and BPCL) for procurement of Biodiesel, made from Used Cooking Oil (UCO).
On the Occasion of the World Biofuel Day Shri Pradhan launched a sticker on RUCO (Repurpose Used Cooking Oil) and a mobile app to facilitate the collection of UCO.
This year the theme of the World Biofuel Day was “Production of Biodiesel from Used Cooking Oil (UCO)”.
The EOI on BioDiesel from UCO provides that the entrepreneurs setting up Biodiesel plants get remunerative price and assurance of complete offtake of production by the Oil companies.
To be launched in 100 cities, EOI will ensure that Rs 51/ litre is paid for Biodiesel for the first year, Rs 52.7 for the second year and Rs 54.5 for the third year. The Oil companies will also bear the cost of transportation and GST for the first year.
Since the Prime Minister has given a target to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to bring down import dependency of oil products by 2022, and this can be achieved by enhancing production, improving energy efficiency, promoting conservation and encouraging alternate fuels.
Four-pronged strategy
The government is promoting the alternate sources of energy in a big way. Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is working on a four-pronged strategy in this regard -promoting Ethanol, 2-G ethanol, Compressed bio-Gas and Bio-diesel.
The ethanol blending in Petrol has gone up from 1% to about 8% and is likely to touch 10% soon.
The Government is planning to allow production of ethanol from surplus foodgrains which now sometimes go waste and also entail expenditure on storage.
