The Centre has said India’s refining capacity is set to expand significantly by 2030, supported by parallel efforts to accelerate the adoption of cleaner fuels such as biofuels, green hydrogen and liquefied natural gas. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Suresh Gopi said the country’s current refining capacity of 258.1 million metric tonnes per annum is expected to rise to 309.5 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) by the end of the decade.
Gopi said the Petrochemical Intensity Index of public sector refineries, which stands at 4.1, is projected to increase to about 9.3 as ongoing and planned projects are completed. Alongside refinery expansion, the government has undertaken a series of measures to scale up the production and use of cleaner fuels. These include achieving 20 percent ethanol blending under the Ethanol Blending Programme and widening the feedstock base to improve ethanol availability.
Efforts to strengthen the biofuel ecosystem are also under way through the Pradhan Mantri Jaiv Indhan-Vatavaran Anukool Fasal Awashesh Nivaran Yojana (PM-JI-VAN), which supports projects on advanced biofuels such as sustainable aviation fuel. The government is simultaneously working to expand compressed biogas production through the Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) scheme, complemented by initiatives such as Biomass Aggregation Machinery and Direct Pipeline Infrastructure to improve biomass collection and pipeline connectivity for compressed biogas plants.
Building on these measures, the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) aims to position green hydrogen as the next major pillar of the clean energy transition. The mission targets production of five million metric tonnes per annum of green hydrogen by 2030 to support industrial decarbonisation and emerging hydrogen-based applications.
The government is also taking steps to expand the supply and use of liquefied natural gas by developing new terminals, stations and related infrastructure, with the objective of increasing the fuel’s availability across sectors.
The minister said the growing adoption of biofuels, compressed biogas, green hydrogen and liquefied natural gas holds the potential to reduce emissions across transport and a range of hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, iron and steel. Their use, it added, will contribute to lowering the country’s overall emission intensity and support India’s broader low-carbon transition.
