India’s first methanol-based alternative cooking fuel to be established in Assam

Public sector Assam Petrochemicals Limited will roll out India’s first methanol-based alternative cooking fuel at Namrup methanol plant in Dibrugarh district, Assam on October 5. The pilot project involves 500 burners and stoves, each fuelled by a 1.2-litre canister of methanol. It will be priced at around Rs 32 and about 18 of them would be equivalent to one conventional domestic LPG cylinder. The technology for the canister and the special burner has been provided by Sweden. At present, the Namrup plant produces 100 tonnes of methanol per day. The ongoing expansion of the plant will push production by 500 tonnes per day by September 2019. As per experts, methanol is clean and green fuel besides being 30% cheaper than Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). It is a scalable and sustainable fuel that can be produced from a variety of feedstock like natural gas, coal, bio-mass, municipal solid waste and CO2.