Bamboo booster: Assam refinery bets big on bioethanol

The Numaligarh Refinery has identified 25 bamboo chipping units for supplying to its upcoming biorefinery

GUWAHATI

The fuel in your vehicle could soon have some bamboo in it.

The public sector Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) in eastern Assam’s Golaghat district has taken major strides in setting up a ₹1,750-crore biorefinery unit for producing bioethanol from 5-lakh metric tonnes of bamboo per annum.

The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) holds about 70% share of the refinery in which the Assam government is a stakeholder.

The biorefinery is a part of NRL’s major integrated expansion project to treble its capacity from the current 3 million metric tonnes per annum to 9 MMTPA entailing an investment of more than ₹28,000-crore. The project includes setting up of a crude oil import terminal at the Paradip Port in Odisha.

The eight northeastern States grow more than 65% of the country’s bamboo, but NRL would initially source the raw material from areas within a 300 km radius of the refinery.

“The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers says the vehicles in the country can run smoothly on fossil fuel blended with 10% ethanol, which is being done. Our objective is to utilise the vast bamboo resource in the Northeast supplied by a network of bamboo chipping units,” NRL chairman and IOC chairman-managing director Ranjit Rath said.