Chempolis, Fortum and NRL seal a deal for the building of a cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in India
Type of post: NEWS.
On 14th February 2016, Chempolis announced the establishment of a joint
venture with Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL, a state-owned Indian oil
company) to build a cellulosic ethanol biorefinery using formicobio™ technology in the
state of Assam in Northeast India (see “Chempolis
and NRL to build advanced biorefinery in India”, 22/2/2016). At that time,
the details about the timeline were not disclosed and, until now, advances on
the status of the project were not known.
Three days ago, Chempolis announced the
creation of a new joint venture to construct the biorefinery in Assam (see press release, 2/5/2018). Now, Fortum, a Finish energy company, has
associated with the two former members.
Project key data
Location
|
Numaligarh
(Assam, Northeast India).
|
Feedstock
and processing capacity
|
300,000
tons of bamboo from the vast natural and cultivated bamboo reserves of
Northeast India.
|
Products
and production capacity
|
- 60 million liters of ethanol. It will be
used entirely for NRL’s fuel production in Assam.
- 19,000 tons of furfural.
- 11,000 tons of acetic acid.
- 144 gigawatt hours of green energy.
|
Total investment
|
160 M€.
30% is
being funded through equity and 70% through loans provided by Indian banks.
|
Details
of the joint venture
|
The joint
venture will own the biorefinery.
- Chempolis
(22%): is the licensor of the plant’s technology.
- Fortum
(28%): will expand its activities in India with a portfolio of bioproducts.
- NRL (50%):
is responsible for the facility’s operations.
|
Timeline
|
Environmental
permit for the biorefinery (India’s Ministry of Environment): November 2017.
Beginning
of construction works: autumn of 2018.
Start-up:
2020.
|
The process
The benefits of formicobio derive from the
selective fractioning of the biomass. Chempolis’s patented technology offers
high yields of marketable products and its operating costs are low because the
hydrolysis of clean cellulose requires only small quantities of enzymes.
Figure 1. Simplified diagram of the formicobio
process (extracted from Chempolis website)
It consists of the following main stages:
- Bamboo chips are fractionated with a
biosolvent.
- The biomass fractions are refined into
ethanol, acetic acid, furfural and lignin-rich biocoal.
- The biosolvent and water are recovered and
recycled.
Sustainable
procurement of bamboo
The main sustainability risks are related to
bamboo cultivation and harvesting. The joint venture has agreed on the risk
mitigation plan based on a sustainability assessment. This plan covers
requirements for the origin, the sourcing and the traceability as well as conditions
for procurement and labour practices.
53 million tons of bamboo grows in Northeast
India, of which 8 million tons are utilized. The raw material required for the
biorefinery is approximately 1% of the bamboo growing in the region. NRL has
signed a MoU with UNIDO for developing the community based supply chain for
bamboo. NRL is also cooperating with JFMCS (Joint Forest management committees)
for sourcing bamboo through community involvement and with state governmental
bamboo developmental agencies such as Arunachal Pradesh Bamboo Development
Agency (APBRDA) and Nagaland Bamboo Development Agency (NBDA).
