Oil industries observe World Biofuel Day in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The oil industries on Saturday observed World Biofuel Day to create awareness about the importance of non-fossil fuels as an alternative to conventional fossil fuels and to highlight the various efforts made by the government in the Biofuel sector. 

The World Biofuel Day is being observed by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas for the last four years. This year the theme of the World Biofuel Day is “Production of Biodiesel from Used Cooking Oil (UCO)”.

Padma  Vibhushan Raghunath  Mohapatra graced the occasion in presence of State Level Coordinator (Oil Industry) Subhajit Ghosh, Chief General Manager (CGM) Indian Oil,  Praveena  Kala  CGM SBI Odisha,  Dinabandhu  Soren CGM GAIL,  Abhaynkar  Dash Deputy General Manager HPCL.

Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas organized World Biofuel Day at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi. Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated the programme in presence of Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.

Biofuels have the benefits of reduction of import dependence, cleaner environment, additional income to farmers and employment generation.  Biofuel programme also compliments the Government of India’s initiatives for Make in India, Swachh Bharat and increasing farmers income. 

A number of initiatives have been undertaken to increase production and blending of biofuels since 2014.

In India, the same cooking oil is used for repeated frying which adversely affects the health due to formation of polar compounds during frying.

These polar compounds are associated with diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, liver diseases among others. UCO is either not discarded at all or disposed off in an environmentally hazardous manner choking drains and sewerage systems.

The National Policy on Biofuels, released by the Government of India in 2018, envisages production of Biofuel from UCO. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is implementing a strategy to divert UCO from the food value chain and curb current illegal usage.

The benefits of transformation of UCO will help bring health benefits as there would be no recycling of the UCO, employment generation, infrastructural investment in rural areas & cleaner environment with reduced carbon footprint.

At present, approximately 850 crore litres of High Speed Diesel (HSD) is consumed on a monthly basis in India. The National Policy on Biofuels – 2018 envisages a target of 5% blending of Biodiesel in HSD by 2030. In order to achieve the blending target, 500 crore litres of Biodiesel is required in a year.

In India, approximately, 22.7 MMTPA (2700 crore litres) of Cooking Oil is used out of which 1.2 MMTPA (140 Crore) UCO can be collected from Bulk Consumers such as hotels, restaurants, canteens, etc. for conversion, which will give approximately 110 crore litres of Biodiesel in one year.

Presently there is no established collection chain for UCO. Thus, there is a huge opportunity in the production of biodiesel from UCO.