Aemetis’ Indian biodiesel plant finishes two-year-long upgrades

In California, Aemetis announced that its Universal Biofuels subsidiary has completed a two-year upgrade of the Kakinada, India biodiesel and glycerin plant. The upgrades to the Kakinada plant included installation of a pre-treatment unit to process lower-cost and waste feedstock into oil; expansion of boiler and other utility capacities; and implementation of environmental systems to enable full production of 50 million gallons per year of biodiesel and bio-oil while simultaneously operating the biodiesel, pretreatment and glycerin refining units.

In the first three quarters of 2018, the India biodiesel plant produced about 15,200 metric tons of biodiesel during the plant upgrade construction. After the expansion announced today, current Kakinada plant capacity is approximately 50 million gallons (about 165,000 metric tons) of biodiesel and bio-oil production capacity per year, and approximately 5 million gallons (18,000 metric tons) of glycerin refining capacity per year. The average price of biodiesel sold at the India plant in year 2018 was about $3.00 per gallon ($900 per metric ton) and glycerin was about $1,000 per metric ton.