Emissions and foreign exchange savings due to ethanol blending

The Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Rameswar Teli in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today informed that Under the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme, Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) are selling E10 (10% ethanol blended petrol) as per availability. For the ongoing Ethanol Supply Year (ESY) 2020-21, OMCs have sold3672.46 crore litres of ethanol blended petrol during the period 01^st December, 2020 to 14^th November, 2021.

A joint study was conducted by Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) along with Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) and Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) to access the effect of E10 (10% ethanol blending in petrol) on existing vehicles wherein the findings indicated that the hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions decreased by about 20% with E10 compared to neat petrol on both two wheelers and passenger cars. Subsequently another project on E20 (20% ethanol blending in petrol) showed that carbon monoxide emissions decreased by about 50% in two wheelers and about 30% in four wheelers by using E20 compared to neat petrol. The foreign exchange impact is a factor of average Free on Board (FoB) rate of petrol and USD/INR exchange rate. For the ongoing ESY 2020-21 during the period 01^st December, 2020 to 14^th November, 2021, the notional foreign exchange impact is estimated to be around Rs.9580 crores.

Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) has informed that the present alcohol/ethanol distillation capacity in the country is around 722 crore litres per annum which has to be increased to estimated 1500 crore litres per annum to meet the requirement of 20% ethanol blending under the EBP Programme and requirement of other sectors.