Governor Prof Ganeshi Lal would lay foundation-stone for a second-generation ethanol bio-refinery of the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) at Baulsingha village in Bargarh district on October 10 in presence of Union Petroleum and Natural Gas and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
BPCL Biofuels CGM Sanjeeb Paul informed at a Press meet held here on Sunday.
He said the bio-refinery, which would cost around Rs 1,000 crore, would have a capacity to produce three crore litres of fuel grade ethanol annually using rice straw as feedstock and the ethanol produced from this plant would be blended with petrol.
The National Biofuel Policy of India 2018 targets 20 per cent ethanol blending to petrol by year 2030, however due to non-availability of ethanol, the current ethanol blending in petrol is only around 3 to 4 per cent. Setting up of the 2G ethanol plants would help achieve the target of ethanol blending in petrol, he added.
The plant would utilise about two lakh tons of rice straw annually as feedstock which would be sourced from nearby locations like Bhatli, Ambabhona, Attabira, Sohela, Burla, Lakhanpur and others.
In addition to cleaner environment, the project would help improve the socio-economic conditions of the farmers due to additional income from supply of waste rice straw to the Bio-Refinery and would generate employment for about 1,200 persons both directly and indirectly.
Among others, State Head, Retail (Odisha and Jharkhand) Debashis Palit and Brand and Public Relation DGM SS Sundararajan were present.