The Indian government last week raised ethanol prices in a move designed to reduce sugar inventories in the country and improve sugar mills’ ability to make payments to cane farmers.

The move is also expected to deliver more ethanol for blending into petrol, which reduces the dependency on imports, brings environmental benefits and supports the agricultural sector, the government explains.

For the 2018/19 sugar season, the price of ethanol produced from 100% sugarcane juice was raised by more than 25% to INR 59.13 (EUR 0.70) per litre for mills which divert all sugarcane juice for ethanol production, while the price of ethanol derived produced from B heavy molasses saw a more modest increase of about 11% to INR 52.43 per litre.

In the 2017/18 ethanol supply, public sector oil marketing companies procured 1.4 billion litres ethanol.

 

Provided by Renewables Now exclusively for Essentica.