MRPL Firms up Green Aviation Fuel Plans

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December 21, 2023

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by Aneesh Phadnis (Business Line) While Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) plans to start the country’s first commercial-scale SAF plant at Panipat by 2026, MRPL is setting up 20-kilolitre-per-day plant to demonstrate indigenously-developed technology -- Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) is gearing up to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in two years to support the government’s one per cent blending target.

While Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) plans to start the country’s first commercial-scale SAF plant at Panipat by 2026, MRPL is setting up 20-kilolitre-per-day plant to demonstrate indigenously-developed technology.

The MRPL management is in the process of taking necessary board approvals for the construction of the SAF plant, said Sanjay Varma, who holds additional charge of managing director, MRPL. Subsequently, it will take about two-and-a-half years for setting up the plant at an estimated cost of around ₹450 crore, Varma added.

MRPL has also undertaken a survey with subject matter experts to identify sources for the required quantities of feed for target SAF production including scale up at a later date.

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IOC will use LanzaJet’s alcohol-to-jet technology to produce SAF in a 50:50 joint venture. MRPL is relying on CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum’s single-step process that converts used cooking oil or palm waste to produce SAF.

CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum has produced more than 14,000 litres of SAF on a pilot basis in Dehradun and the fuel has been approved for use in Indian Air Force aircraft with a 10 per cent blend since 2021. The process for securing the ASTM International certification is underway. Once approved, the fuel can be used by airlines.

“Almost 80 per cent of the work for certification is complete. We are expecting the approval in another five-six months,” Indian Institute of Petroleum said.

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While steps are being initiated to produce the green fuel, the development is not without challenges. Currently, the cost of SAF is almost three-five times the cost of fossil fuel, depending on the feedstock and production pathway. Also, industry executives point out there is no clarity on SAF pricing. An another challenge cited by the government is about sourcing of feedstock in a cost-effective manner. While feedstock is plentiful, the infrastructure needed to collect, sort, transport and store these materials in a cost-effective way remains underdeveloped.

In fact, at the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s meeting in Dubai last month, India proposed that decision on quantifiable targets for SAF be further analysed and taken in 2025.

Yet, despite concerns from India, China, Saudi Arabia and other countries, ICAO member-states agreed on aspirational goal to reduce C02 emissions in international aviation by 5 per cent by 2030. READ MORE

Indian Air Force Is Flying Jets On Green Fuel, But Can We Scale Up? (Planet Outlook)

Excerpt from Planet Outlook: At COP26 in Glasgow held in 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had committed to achieving net-zero emissions for India by 2070. Even the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which was adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization in 2016, will become mandatory by 2027. All airlines and aircraft operators will have to offset any growth in CO2 emissions above 2020 levels. Sustainable air fuel will indeed play a key role in meeting this target. As compared to normal jet fuel used in aircraft, green aviation fuels can reduce carbon emissions by up to 80 per cent.

Sustainable Aviation

The aviation sector in India has taken some steps in this direction. Last year IndiGo signed an agreement with the CSIR-IIP in leading the deployment of sustainable aviation fuel in India and globally. The CSIR-IIP, Dehradun, is one of the leading agencies engaged in the research and production of sustainable air fuel in the country. The Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) is a major constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR).

The airlines had stated in a press release, “Under this partnership, IndiGo and CSIR-IIP will enter into specific arrangements for projects for SAF based on techno-commercial feasibility and Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) value creation.” It added that it “desires to be an anchor partner to such Institutes and oil refining companies in the future to address the core issue of carbon emissions and take a lead in demonstrating its commitment towards sustainable and responsible growth”.

Sustainable air fuel produced by CSIR-IIP technology has now been formally approved and certified for use on the Indian Air Force aircraft. In the commercial space, SpiceJet operated India’s first flight powered by biofuel in 2018.

While Sustainable air fuel holds out the promise of a greener planet, its production and cost remain sore points. Vinamra Longani, head of operations, Sarin & Co, a law firm specialising in aircraft leasing and finance reasons, “SAF has the potential to provide a lifecycle carbon reduction of up to 80 per cent compared to the traditional jet fuel it replaces. While it is, without doubt, the most feasible option to decarbonise the aviation industry, it is significantly more expensive than aviation turbine fuel. Until the Government of India incentivises the production, distribution, and use of SAF in India, its large scale use by Indian airlines may not become a reality anytime soon.”

In December 2021, civil aviation minister V.K. Singh, while responding to a question in Parliament, had revealed that carbon dioxide (Co2) emissions by Indian scheduled domestic flights rose to 12,307,000 tonnes during 2018 from 6,135,000 tonnes in 2012. Of course, the numbers declined during the pandemic and will swell again post-pandemic.

Global Coalitions

Given India’s persistence with sustainable air fuel, things can change for the better. According to World Economic Forum’s “Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition Report 2021”, “India is particularly well-positioned to have a significant impact in the area. Of more than 80 private- and public-sector organizations that make up the Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition, around 20 are from India.”

The Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition is an initiative to facilitate the reduction of carbon emissions in the aviation sector. The report stated that India not only is projected to go from its current position as the world’s eighth-largest aviation market to third place by 2025, it also generates abundant amounts of agricultural residues—farming byproducts, such as husks and chaff, used cooking oil, and other solid waste—which is used to produce sustainable air fuel.

The International Air Transport Association, the trade association of airlines across the globe, has opined, “Biofuels can be used directly in existing aircraft, which are designed to run on 50 per cent blends of kerosene. They have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 per cent compared to kerosene over their entire life cycle but SAF accounts for less than 0.1 per cent of aviation fuel being used currently.”

Inadequate Production Infrastructure

In India, the availability of feedstock is not a problem. According to Saleem Akhtar Faroouqi, a scientist working on research and development of sustainable air fuel at the IIP, establishing the supply chain of non-edible oils poses the real challenge. “Indian jet fuel consumption is approximately 20,000 tonnes per month. With a 10 per cent blending of SAF with 90 per cent Jet A1 (a commonly used fuel in commercial aviation), the demand for SAF would be approximately 2,000 tonnes per month,” he said.

Faroouqi feels that it will be hard to meet that kind of demand if the current situation persists. “Right from cultivation, aggregation, transportation, manufacturing in plants and then blending it with jet fuel, everything needs to be streamlined. We also do not have any plants that make SAF,” he said.

The CSIR-IIP has a pilot plant in Dehradun where it produces 30 liters of sustainable air fuel, which is approved by the American Society for Testing and Materials, per day primarily for the Indian Air Force for continuous flight tests. The maiden biofuel flight in the country by SpiceJet was also fuelled by the CSIR-IIP production facility. To date, the pilot plant has produced approximately 9,500 liters of sustainable fuel from non-edible oils or waste from the edible oil industry, such as palm stearin, palm fatty acid distillates, used cooking oil, jatropha, karanja and algae oil.

The CSIR-IIP also procures its feed from Chhattisgarh Biofuel Development Authority and other sources like Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s repurpose used cooking oil. The IIP is now collaborating with an Indian refinery, and an Indian engineering company to set up a new sustainable air fuel plant.

“It can encourage others to set up SAF plants, but the government would need to do a bit of hand-holding,” Farooqui adds. READ MORE