Aemetis completes expansion of India biodiesel plant from 50 mgy to 60 mgy ahead of schedule

Inside the Universal Biofuels plant in Kakinada, India (Photo: Aemetis Inc.)

Aemetis Inc. announced Sept. 6 that the company’s Universal Biofuels subsidiary has completed an expansion of its India biodiesel plant annual production capacity to 60 million gallons, more than one year ahead of schedule, supplying the expanding demand for biodiesel by India government-owned oil-marketing companies (OMCs).

Aemetis’ five-year plan describes an increase from 50 million gallons per year (mgy) to 100 mgy of biodiesel production capacity at the India plant to be completed by 2025.

Additional capital projects to increase the production capacity at the Kakinada, India, biodiesel plant to 80 mgy are in process for completion in the first half of 2024, also ahead of schedule.

“The market for biodiesel in India continues to expand as OMCs increase the number of blending locations and the percentage of biofuel blended into diesel,” said Sanjeev Gupta, president of Aemetis International. “The Kakinada plant has expanded production by completing upgrades to debottleneck the plant, and the next phase will add additional process equipment to increase capacity. When production capacity reaches 100 mgy, the India business will be able to generate more than $500 million per year of revenues.”

Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis, added, “Aemetis continues to demonstrate our ability to design, engineer, permit, construct and operate renewable fuels production facilities, then continually improve the energy efficiency, feedstocks and other carbon-intensive components of operations to improve financial margins by reducing costs and increasing revenues. The U.S. ethanol business is doing relatively well due to low feedstock and natural gas costs, and our India biodiesel business continues to perform very well while increasing production capacity without incurring debt. We see our focus on reducing the carbon intensity of our renewable fuels as an expanding competitive advantage compared to petroleum fuels.”

Built by Aemetis near the eastern India port of Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, the Universal Biofuels plant is the largest biodiesel production facility in India.

Expanded biodiesel production supports the Indian government’s goal of a 5 percent biodiesel blend equal to approximately 1.25 billion gallons per year, which was established in the 2022 National Biofuels Policy.

India consumes about 25 billion gallons per year of diesel, but India does not have a meaningful amount of domestic oil production and is dependent on imported crude oil to supply its petroleum refineries.

The adoption of a 5 percent biodiesel-blend target by the India government is expected to reduce the amount of petroleum imported into India, reduce the export of dollars to purchase crude oil, strengthen domestic agricultural producers and processors, and significantly improve air quality while reducing carbon pollution.

Petroleum-diesel emissions are a significant contributor to poor air quality and health issues in India.

According to the Public Health Foundation of India, air pollution causes more than $36 billion of economic losses each year and about one of every six deaths in India are caused by air pollution.

Biodiesel used in heavy transportation reduces particulate emissions and creates domestic demand in India for agricultural feedstocks and waste byproducts to supply renewable fuel production facilities.

Biodiesel produced from waste feedstocks reduces carbon pollution by up to 80 percent compared to petroleum diesel, directly reducing the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.