Green Fuels, the world’s leading distributed-scale biodiesel and advanced biofuels company, today signed a memorandum of understanding with Aris Bioenergy Pvt Ltd, having a large-scale network of used cooking oil aggregation, committing the two companies to a biodiesel refining joint venture in India.
Under the agreement, Green Fuels and Aris have formed a company that will leverage Aris’s considerable experience in used cooking oil collection in the Mumbai metropolitan area. This feedstock will be transformed into biodiesel in a Green Fuels FuelMatic GSX20 biorefinery to be located in an industrial zone midway between Mumbai and Pune. The joint venture is currently engaged in the tendering process to supply the offtake from this and future plants to India’s three state-operated Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs).
“We are delighted to be partnering with Green Fuels, whose state-of-the-art bio-refining tech will enable us to take advantage of very favourable market conditions in India where timely government action, in the form of a 5% blend mandate, a ban on the export of waste cooking oil and offtake price guarantees from the OMCs, has at a stroke, created demand for biodiesel and stimulated the country’s growing bio-economy. Current national production capacity meets just 8% of demand, so there is considerable scope for expansion across India.”
Aris CMD Umesh Waghdhare
“Green Fuels views India, which is leading the world in incentivising biofuels production, as pivotal in its worldwide refining capacity-building programme. We are proud to be exporting the post-Covid green recovery to India, and perhaps most important, building a business that will install 20 similar plants across the country and save a million tonnes of CO2 by 2025.”
James Hygate, Green Fuels CEO
Alan Gemmell OBE, Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for South Asia and British Deputy High Commissioner for Western India, commented “We are delighted to support Aris Green Fuels Pvt, a new UK-Indian joint venture between Green Fuels and Aris Bio Energy India, and their mission to transform the Bio-Fuels markets in India. Their first twenty-tonne plant, which will be set up close to Mumbai, will be one of many across the country. With one year to go to COP26, the UK and India are playing leading global roles to tackle climate change and promote clean energy transition. Aris Green Fuels Pvt Ltd’s innovative green tech solution demonstrates the essential role business will play in meeting our COP26 goals.”
Reacting to the MoU announcement, Honourable Environment Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Aaditya Thackeray added “Maharashtra is committed towards building a cleaner and greener future. Today’s MoU signing between Green Fuels UK and Mumbai based Aris BioEnergy is a big step in the right direction, re-affirming our commitment towards attracting ‘Green’ investments and projects into the state of Maharashtra. The state is working actively on implementing various initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint and impact on climate change and is working on implementing large scale Renewable Energy projects.”
Follow us on our social media