New Delhi: A week after the Union Cabinet approved the National Green Hydrogen mission, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said that state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) are expected to submit their roadmap for the utilisation of green hydrogen in their operations in the next 10-14 days. Addressing the 11th CII Bioenergy Summit on Thursday, "I have been a staunch believer that the success of green hydrogen will come from the petroleum industry for a variety of reasons. You have the refineries, which will use it for a variety of P&G functions. In terms of their mindset, they are already doing that. It's happening everywhere in the world, not just India."
The Union Cabinet last week approved an initial outlay of Rs 19,744 crore for the National Green Hydrogen Mission. Puri said that that global players have tied up with Indian companies to manufacture electrolysers. He stressed that the cost of green hydrogen will ultimately not depend on electrolysers, but on renewable power.
Electrolysers are used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. When the electricity that is used to split the atoms is renewable energy, the end product is called green hydrogen.
Green hydrogen is expected to be used by oil refineries, fertilizer and steel producers in their operations.
Commenting on the government's decision to introduce E20 fuel (20 percent ethanol blended fuel) from April 1 this year, Puri said that the market forces would deal with the issue of automobile fuel engines not being compatible with petrol having more than 20 percent blended ethanol. He argued that engines programmed to run on fuel with more than 20 percent blended ethanol are readily available in the market.
"There is now conventional wisdom that if you have 20 percent blending, then the existing engines with or without modifications are good enough to run it. There is also now technology available if you need to do minor adjustments (to the engine)," he said.
To put the ethanol blending percentage figures into perspective, every 10 percent of biofuel blending in petrol saves the country Rs 40,000 crore worth of crude imports.
While noting that OMCs have been good corporate citizens and have taken a big hit on the fuel by not passing the increase in global prices to consumers in the same measure, Puri said, "Now, they are telling us they have taken a hit on petrol and diesel as well. It is under discussion now. As a line minister, I am supporting them."
The three OMCs, Indian Oil, HPCL and BPCL, suffered losses for not passing on the complete burden of the surge in gas prices in H1 of the current fiscal. And the government had, in October 2022, released Rs 22,000 crore to compensate them.
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