Aemetis India subsidiary on schedule with biodiesel shipments

Aemetis said its Universal Biofuels subsidiary in India is on schedule with biodiesel shipments to the three government-owned oil marketing company (OMC) customers with $27 million (€24 million) of the $34 million (€31 million) of second quarter contracted deliveries already completed.
The combined orders for the second quarter comprised about 8 million gallons of biodiesel and future volumes are expected to be increased as OMC procurement processes continue to improve.
“Similar to our renewable fuels projects in the United States, Aemetis is committed to improving the environment and health in India by reducing the country’s dependence on imported, high cost, highly polluting petroleum diesel fuel,” stated Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis, Inc.
“We are scaling up our operational capacity to meet quarterly OMC tender offers that are significantly larger than our current capacity to produce biodiesel.”
As the largest producer of biodiesel in India, improvements in the OMC procurement process have enabled the Universal Biofuels 50 million gallon per year capacity plant to increase production.
Expanded biodiesel production supports the Indian government’s initial goal of a 1% biodiesel blend in the amount of about 250 million gallons per year, on the way to fulfilling the 5% blend (1.25 billion gallons per year) set forth in the 2022 National Biofuels Policy.
India consumes about 25 billion gallons per year of diesel, but it does not have a meaningful amount of domestic oil production and is dependent on imported crude oil to supply its petroleum refineries.
Biodiesel used in heavy transportation reduces particulate emissions by more than 90% compared to petroleum diesel and creates domestic demand in India for agricultural feedstocks and waste byproducts to supply renewable fuel production facilities.
Biodiesel produced from waste feedstocks reduces carbon pollution by 50% to 80% compared to petroleum diesel, directly reducing the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.