Indian Oil To Build Gas-To-Ethanol Plant

Indian Oil has signed a memorandum of understanding to build an ethanol plant in India based on Celanese’s TCX technology, which produces ethanol from acetic acid. The plant will likely be built in Paradip in India’s Odisha state and will use gasified petroleum coke as its raw material. The ethanol will be used as a fuel. Celanese runs a small TCX plant in at its Clear Lake site, in Pasadena, Texas, and started up a 270,000-metric-ton-per-year unit at its acetic acid complex in Nanjing, China, last year. The company is also contemplating further units in China and one in Indonesia.