Aemetis completes expansion of Indian biodiesel plant ahead of schedule

Aemetis has announced that its Universal Biofuels subsidiary has completed an expansion of its India biodiesel plant’s annual production capacity to 60 million gallons more than a year ahead of schedule.
This supply will help the expanding demand for biodiesel by India government-owned Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs).
The Aemetis Five Year Plan said an increase from 50 million gallons per year (MGY) to 100 MGY of biodiesel production capacity at the India plant to be completed by year 2025.
Additional capital projects to increase the production capacity at the Kakinada, India biodiesel plant to 80 MGY are in process for completion in the first half of 2024 - also ahead of schedule.
“The market for biodiesel in India continues to expand as OMCs increase the number of blending locations and the percentage of biofuel blended into diesel,” stated Sanjeev Gupta, president of Aemetis International.
“The Kakinada plant has expanded production by completing upgrades to de-bottleneck the plant, and the next phase will add additional process equipment to increase capacity.”
“Aemetis continues to demonstrate our ability to design, engineer, permit, construct and operate renewable fuels production facilities, then continually improve the energy efficiency, feedstocks, and other carbon intensive components of operations to improve financial margins by reducing costs and increasing revenues,” said Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis.
“The US ethanol business is doing relatively well due to low feedstock and natural gas costs, and our India biodiesel business continues to perform very well while increasing production capacity without incurring debt. We see our focus on reducing the carbon intensity of our renewable fuels as an expanding competitive advantage compared to petroleum fuels.”
Built by Aemetis near the eastern India port of Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, the Universal Biofuels plant is the largest biodiesel production facility in India.
Expanded biodiesel production supports the Indian government’s goal of a 5% biodiesel blend equal to approximately 1.25 billion gallons per year which was established in the 2022 National Biofuels Policy.