India’s government looking to UCO to meet biodiesel demand

In India, celebrations of the country’s World Biofuel Day over the weekend led to the government highlighting their interest in the procurement of biodiesel from used cooking oil across 100 cities and asking for companies to submit Expression of Interest (EOI).  The purpose of inviting this EOI is to encourage the applicants to set up Biodiesel producing plants from Used Cooking Oil (UCO), processing plants and further utilizing the existing potential of UCO based Bio-diesel in India.

The National Policy on Biofuels envisages production of biofuel from UCO and the 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.

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.