Sugar mills rake in Rs 20,500 Crore from ethanol Sales to oil companies, India aims for third spot by 2025-26

Sugar mills and distilleries have garnered Rs 20,500 crore in revenue in 2021-22, from the sale of ethanol to OMCs. Furthermore, the government on Wednesday stated that during the current sugar season 2022-23 (October - September), about 3,353 lakh tonnes of sugarcane, worth Rs1,11,366 crore were purchased by sugar mills, which is the second highest, next to the procurement of paddy crop at the Minimum Support Price (MSP). By 2025, it is targeted to divert more than 60 LMT of excess sugar to ethanol.

According to official estimates, the updated Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme, which is also referred to as E20, has the potential to create additional opportunities to generate over 10 billion litres per annum of ethanol capacity with the adoption of a wide range of feedstocks, which assumes significance, as India aims to become the third largest ethanol producing country in the world by 2025-26.

Its implementation will help in saving foreign exchange of over Rs 30,000 crore annually. India, which sources over 80 percent of its fuel needs through imports, spends close to $101.4 billion annually on crude oil imports. Every dollar increase in the crude oil price significantly increases the country's annual import bill to around Rs 10,700 crore.