India’s government should consider bringing back fuel with ethanol blending content lower than 20% amid concerns about potential damage to the old vehicle and two-wheeler fleet in the world’s most populous country, the government’s chief economic adviser said.
In a bid to lower crude oil imports and reduce pollution, India last year introduced the E20 fuel blend, which as of April 1 is the only type of fuel available at gas stations throughout India.
However, concerns about vehicle performance have prompted calls for bringing back fuel blends with lower ethanol content, for example, the E10 fuel with 10% ethanol blended.
“Restoring a lower blend at the pumps, say, E10, alongside the option to buy E20, would calm most public concern, lower total ethanol use instead of raising it, and protect the existing fleet while the retrofit programme catches up,” V Anantha Nageswaran, the Chief Economic Advisor of the Government of India, wrote in an opinion piece in The Indian Express published on Monday.
Nageswaran is the first senior government official to call for making more fuel options available to Indian drivers.
The E 20 fuel rollout is part of the plan of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reduce pollution and lower the gasoline and diesel content, and thus crude oil imports, in the world’s third-largest crude oil importer.
Last month, India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas ruled out ideas to make pure gasoline, E0, or the E10 fuel type, available alongside E20, saying that maintaining multiple gasoline grades would create major operational and logistical challenges.
This weekend, Indian Oil Corporation, the biggest state-owned refiner, said that the “E20 ethanol blended fuel is helping build a cleaner and more resilient tomorrow.”
“By reducing dependence on imported crude and supporting India’s agricultural economy, E20 is creating value for both the nation and its people,” the top state refiner said in an X post.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
