AMN
Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri has said that 22 countries and 12 International Organisations have so far joined the Global Biofuel Alliance launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the G 20 Summit in New Delhi.
He said, the number of countries is also increasing for this alliance. Addressing media on the achievements of his Ministry, Mr Puri informed that with the success of biofuel in India, the country is slowly heading in the direction of biofuel acceptance as a traded commodity.
Global Biofuel Alliance, GBA is an India-led Initiative to develop an alliance of Governments, International organizations and Industry to facilitate adoption of biofuels. Bringing together the biggest consumers and producers of biofuels to drive biofuels development and deployment, the initiative aims to position biofuels as a key to energy transition and contribute to jobs and economic growth.
The Union Minister said that India has taken global leadership role in Biofuels supply chain and the country has been successful to promote GBA as a pivotal path in the sustainability journey at COP 28 held in December last year.
He informed that India is now the world’s 3rd largest energy consumer, 3rd largest consumer of oil, 3rd largest LPG consumer, 4th largest LNG importer, 4th largest refiner and 4th largest automobile market in the world.
Mr Puri stressed that Ethanol blending during Ethanol Supply Year 2022-23 has saved nearly 509 crore litres of Petrol. It has resulted in savings of more than 24 thousand 300 crore rupees of foreign exchange and expeditious payment of about 19 thousand 300 crore rupees to farmers including net CO2 reduction of 108 lakh metric tonnes. The Minister said that the number of retail outlets retailing Ethanol 20 has gone up to more than 9 thousand 300 and will cover the entire country by 2025.
Referring to the progress of City Gas Distribution (CGD) network since May 2014, Mr Puri said that the number of CGD network has increased from 53 in 2014 to 300 in 2023, the number PNG Connections reached from 25.4 lakh in 2014 to 1.19 crore in 2023 and the CNG Stations increased from 738 in 2014 to 6 thousand 88 in 2023.