India permits production of ethanol using sugarcane juice and molasses

In a Monday notification, the Indian government announced that it would allow production of ethanol without volume restrictions from sugarcane syrup, juice and all other types of molasses in 2025/2026.

Sugarcane supply had dropped, and the second largest sugar producer in the world was forced to reduce production during this marketing year.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution announced that sugar mills and distilleries can produce ethanol in the new ethanol production year, which begins on November 1, without any quantitative restrictions.

It said that the government will review periodically sugar diversion into ethanol in order to ensure year-round availability of sweetener.

Sugarcane production is expected to increase in the coming season as monsoon rainfalls have been plentiful for the past two years, allowing farmers to plant more sugarcane.

This is a very welcome step. "The government should raise the ethanol purchase price so that mills pay farmers the fixed cane price set by the government," said a Sugar miller in Maharashtra, a western state.

In the past few years, Indian sugar mills like E.I.D.-Parry and Balrampur Chini Mills have increased their capacity to produce ethanol.

India, which is the world's third largest oil importer, wants to blend 20% ethanol in gasoline by 2025/26. (Reporting and editing by Tomasz Janowski, Jan Harvey and Rajendra Jadhav)

(source: Reuters)