Karnataka: MRPL’s ethanol plant likely to be commissioned in 2025

The Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) is awaiting an environmental clearance for its second generation ethanol plant in Harihara in Davangere district, MRPL managing director M Venkatesh said on Friday.

The project will be implemented at an estimated cost of about Rs 1,000 crore. Land has been acquired for the project, and the plant is expected to be commissioned in 2025.

‘’The project is aimed at producing 60,000 litres of ethanol per day. The feedstocks for the plant will be based on agro residues, like corn cob, cotton stalk and so on. This will also reduce import dependence and accelerate the promotion of biofuels. Apart from helping to reduce the greenhouse gas emission, it will also provide income to farmers,’’ Venkatesh said during an
interaction with reporters on Friday.

He said that ethanol, produced from the plant, will be blended with petrol.

‘’The National Policy on Biofuels 2018 is aimed at the accelerated promotion of biofuels with the indicative targets of achieving 20% blending in petrol and 5% blending in diesel by 2030. The public sector oil marketing companies have attained an average 10% ethanol blending in petrol across the country,’’ the MD explained.

Phase four expansion

With the government’s push for electric vehicles and those run by natural gas, the MRPL is mulling over focusing more on petrochemicals than fuel when phase-four expansion becomes a reality, he said.

The land acquisition process has been initiated for the phase four of the expansion of refinery, he said.

About 850 acres for the refinery will be acquired in Permude and Kuthethur areas. As many as 120 acres of land for developing the rehabilitation colony in Muloor-Kandavara will be taken up, Venkatesh added.