India’s ethanol blended petrol (EBP) programme was initiated primarily to benefit the sugar industry. For mills confronting stagnant sugar consumption demand amid rising production, ethanol created an additional revenue stream to enable them to make timely payments to cane farmers.

Till 2017-18, all ethanol supplied to oil marketing companies (OMC) came from “C-heavy” molasses — a thick, dark brown final byproduct of cane-juice processing, containing sucrose that mills cannot further economically recover as sugar after three rounds of boiling and crystallisation. From the 2018-19 supply year, mills started producing ethanol from the intermediate-stage “B-heavy” molasses and also directly from whole sugarcane juice syrup. With less sucrose getting crystallised and recovered as sugar, mills could use more of it for fermenting into ethanol. They were incentivised to do so by the Narendra Modi government paying more for ethanol made from B-heavy molasses and direct cane juice/syrup than from the normal C-heavy route. The result: Between 2013-14 and 2018-19, ethanol supplies to OMCs rose from 38 crore to 190 crore litres. So did the all-India average ethanol blending in petrol, from 1.6 per cent to 4.9 per cent.

The real change, however, happened when cereal grains began being used as ethanol feedstock. The process here involved first milling the grains into flour, extracting starch and breaking it down to simple sugars, followed by fermentation, distillation and dehydration to 99.9 per cent pure alcohol or ethanol suitable for blending with petrol.

Initially, the sugar mills themselves installed multi-feedstock distilleries to run on molasses and juice/syrup during the crushing period (November-April) and on grains in the off-season (May-October), when cane wasn’t available. Over time, though, exclusively grain-based........

© Indian Express