To ensure-year-round ethanol production: Natural Sugar and Allied Industries Limited first mill in state to opt for dual feed

Thombare said they will start to commission their dual feed system from November this year.

“Sugarcane juice will be used as feedstock to produce ethanol during the crushing season. Once the crushing season is over, maize will be used as the feedstock to produce ethanol. Thus, our ethanol production unit will stay in operation year-round,” he said.

Ethanol is produced by treating carbohydrate-rich liquid obtained from either crushing cane or other sources like maize or broken rice. The central government has been pushing sugar mills to opt for ethanol production since 2018.

As part of the push, price brackets were fixed for ethanol produced using sugarcane juice or sugar syrup as the feedstock, while the lowest price was fixed for ethanol from C molasses. Stress has now been laid on using food grains as feed stock, which will help the government avoid any fluctuation of sugar production in the event that drought causes can production to dip in that year.

Maize has emerged as the best available alternative for year-round production of cane, given the crop’s lower water requirement. In addition, mills enter into agreements with local farmers to buy maize at a fixed price, which works in favour of both parties.

In areas like Dharashiv located in Marathwada area, maize can be an alternative to cane in this area in times of drought.

While Thombare has decided to opt for dual feed, many other mills expressed their inability to do the same. Mills, especially in water-surplus Kolhapur and Sangli, will find it difficult to opt for the dual feed technique in want of other feed options. Another factor which mills face is the cost of investment in dual feed mechanisms. Rough calculations show it will require around Rs 45-50 crore extra to retro-fit existing capacities to ensure they become dual-feed. “In case of Maharashtra, most mills have not been able to service their existing loans for construction of the original capacities so they will find it difficult to go for further loans,” said a cooperative miller from Kolhapur.

It is estimated that investment worth Rs 40,000 crore has been put into ethanol capacity construction in the country.

With the government now pushing for grain-based ethanol, most mills are apprehensive of investing more. “It is seen that 60 per cent of the ethanol procured for the fuel-blending programme is from grain-based production. This has put sugr mills’ investments at risk,” said the miller.