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NRL, Finnish co ink pact on bamboo project

By Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Feb 23 - In a significant development towards implementation of its upcoming Bio Refinery Project at Numaligarh, NRL has inked a framework agreement with its technology partner of M/s Chempolis Oy, Finland, on Wednesday.

The agreement was signed between GM (Marketing and BD) B Ekka, and GM (Finance) SD Maheshwari from the NRL side and Chairperson Ms Heli Antila and Director (Asia Pacific and America) Pasi Rousu from the Chempolis side.

Numaligarh Refinery Limited�s Bio Refinery is designed to produce 49,000 tonnes of bio ethanol annually with co-production of furfural and acetic acid from locally available non-food biomass feedstock utilising formicobio technology from Chempolis Oy.

Bamboo is one of the major non-food biomass resources available abundantly in Northeast India and is amongst the fastest growing plants. The plant shall have the capacity to process five lakh tonnes of green bamboo on an annual basis. The bio ethanol so produced would primarily be used to blend NRL petrol as mandated by the National Policy on Bio-fuels, with the surplus to be sold to other oil marketing companies.

�As a green initiative to produce energy from renewable sources, the Bio Refinery Project is expected to give a fillip to bamboo cultivation in the region on commercially sustainable basis, generating large-scale employment and ushering in socio-economic transformation of the Northeast,� an NRL official said.

NRL has already inked MoUs with Nagaland Bamboo Development Agency (NBDA) and Arunachal Pradesh Bamboo Resources Development Agency (APBRDA) in the latter part of 2015 for sourcing of bamboo for the Bio Refinery.

The agreement undertakes to implement the Bio Refinery Project in two phases. Phase-I of the project, scheduled to be completed within a period of six months, will involve basic engineering of the project, completion of EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) study, obtaining EC (Environment Clearance) including public hearing, in-principle agreement on modalities and logistics of sourcing bamboo feedstock, updating financial feasibility report on the project, debt financing arrangement, etc.

On successful completion of Phase-I, the full-fledged activities of physical construction of the plant shall be initiated through formation of a joint venture company.

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