Aemetis to pretreat tallow in India for biodiesel, export some feedstock to California SAF plant

Aemetis Inc.’s subsidiary Universal Biofuels in Kakinada, India, has agreed to acquire a site to construct a tallow oil refining facility. The plant will be designed to supply feedstock to its existing 50-million-gallon-per-year (mgy) biodiesel plant on India’s eastern coast and provide future feedstock supply to Aemetis’ 90 mgy sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel plant being built in Riverbank, California.

“Our circular bioeconomy of renewable and carbon-negative fuels facilities includes our Kakinada biodiesel facility in India, which provides Aemetis unique global access to low carbon intensity, nonedible, renewable waste oils for the production of sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel and biodiesel,” said Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis. “Expanding our India operation to produce refined oil feedstock to supply Aemetis production plants in India and California demonstrates our commitment to fighting global climate change, improving air quality and creating jobs in disadvantaged communities worldwide.”

In addition to the feedstock-pretreatment unit already operational at the Aemetis biodiesel plant in Kakinada, the new feedstock-refining facility will expand the range of feedstocks that can be used for biodiesel, SAF and renewable diesel production to include crude tallow oil.

Recent regulations adopted by the Indian government encourage oil refiners and fuel distributors to purchase biodiesel for blending into petroleum diesel. The new feedstock-refining facility will expand access to India renewable oil feedstock for existing and future Aemetis renewable fuels plants in India and California.

Aemetis built, owns and operates the 50 mgy Kakinada biodiesel plant, one of the largest biodiesel production facilities in India and capable of processing a variety of vegetable oils, animal fats, and waste-oil feedstocks into biodiesel that meet international product standards.

The Kakinada biodiesel plant has been upgraded to convert crude glycerin from the biodiesel-refining process into refined glycerin for pharmaceutical and industrial customers. DeSmet Ballestra, a leading biodiesel production technology company based in Europe, supplied the design and engineering for the Kakinada plant.