India eyes Brazil’s ethanol technology to lower crude oil imports, says commerce secy
India aims to reduce its dependence on crude oil imports by learning and adopting advanced technologies deployed by Brazil for ethanol mixing. The two nations have also decided to double trade between them targeting $50 billion by 2030 from $15.2 billion currently.
“Ethanol and bio-fuel blending is an important area of cooperation where we feel Brazil and India can learn from each other. In fact, Brazil has very advanced technologies available on ethanol mixing with petrol and diesel, which will help us reduce our dependence on crude, petroleum imports,” Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said during the release of trade data on October 13.
India has been accelerating efforts to achieve 20 percent ethanol blending with petrol by 2025 in a bid to reduce reliance on crude oil imports. The average blending rate has been 10 percent ethanol in petrol as of June 2022.
Since Brazil, a top producer of sugarcane and ethanol, has been one of the pioneers in integrating biofuels into its fuel economy, India is looking to benefit by taking a leaf out of the techniques used by the Latin American nation for ethanol blending.
The country’s overall import of crude oil rose to $162.2 billion in FY23, up from $107.5 billion the previous year, data from the Department of Commerce shows.
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