ONGC to process biofuels at upcoming refineries

India's largest oil producer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), will be focusing on biofuel development in the new refineries that it plans to set up. While ONGC is planning to process biofuels ground up at the proposed Andhra Pradesh refinery, it is looking at doing the same at its proposed refinery in Rajasthan.

ONGC chairman Subir Raha will be discussing the biofuels idea with the Rajasthan government shortly.

Speaking to Business Standard, Raha said, "With the growing worldwide concern for biofuels, we are planning to initiate biofuel processing at all our upcoming refineries. While the Andhra Pradesh government has agreed to support us in this venture, we will be discussing the same with the Rajasthan government shortly."

"So far, the Rajasthan government has been supportive and we expect the extension of this support to the biofuels idea as well," he added.

ONGC has received the government approval for building a 7.5-million tonne refinery at Barmer district in Rajasthan through a joint venture between its subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) and UK's Cairn Energy.

Recently, Rajasthan's mines minister Laxmi Narayan Dave was reported to have said that once the project gets off the ground, over 1,20,000 people can expect to be employed at the refinery. The Cairn fields are expected to have an output of over 1,00,000 barrels per day.

In Andhra Pradesh, ONGC plans to set up an export-oriented refinery at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. The Rs 5,500-crore venture will have a capacity of 5.5 million tonnes to 7.5 million tonnes a year. A Rs 1,500-crore special economic zone, scalable to Rs 3,000 crore, has also been proposed in the region.

"The pre-project activities for the Kakinada refinery are on, and we have decided to integrate the concept of biofuels from the design stage itself. The Andhra Pradesh government has agreed to support us in this venture wherein extracts from jatropha and sweet sorghum would be used to produce ethanol to blend in the fuels," Raha said.