Ethenol Price Hike

MUMBAI (ICIS)–India has begun rolling out auto fuel blended with 85% ethanol (E85) to encourage wider adoption of environment-friendly fuel in the country as well as reduce dependence on imported crude oil.

E85 contains 80% to 85% ethanol and 14% to 19% petrol and is specifically designed for use in flexible-fuel vehicles capable of operating on ethanol blends ranging from E20 to E100, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said in a statement on 5 June.

E85 will initially only be available at 48 fuel pumps run by state-owned oil marketing companies, but will soon be expanded to cover the entire country,

In the first phase, E85 will be available at outlets across the national capital region including New Delhi, and Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur in the western Maharashtra state, a petroleum ministry official said.

The initiative “would be scaled up to 500 fuel stations by December 2026 and about 5,000 fuel outlets by December 2027”, the petroleum and natural gas ministry stated.

India’s automobile industry is on board for the launch of E85 and passenger vehicle producers such as Maruti Suzuki and Hero MotoCorp have already rolled out flex-fuel compatible vehicles, petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in the statement.

Flex-fuel vehicles are equipped with an internal combustion engine that can run on petrol, ethanol or methanol, or any blend of the two in the same fuel tank