![\"Prosopis](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/05\/IMG_9871_9_10_2022_18_33_2_1_A0ACF8S7-1024x576.jpg\")
The Mexican-origin shrub called Prosopis juliflora, <\/em>known as gando baval<\/em> in the region, vilayati keekar<\/em> in north India and velikathan<\/em> in Tamil, has crowded out native grasses over thousands of kilometres in Kutch. The plant was first introduced by the British in the 1920s to \u2018green\u2019 Delhi and by the Gujarat forest department in 1961 to halt the encroaching salt desert in the Rann. This weed is to become the feedstock for India\u2019s first green methanol production plant, designed to fuel ocean-going ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Methanol is used as a fuel in shipping often as a replacement to what is called \u2018bunker oil.\u2019 Conventional methanol is produced from fossil fuels such as gas or coal gasification. Green methanol uses biomass from agricultural residue as source material, as in the case of the juliflora<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project, sited at the Deendayal Port Authority (DPA) in Kandla, will produce five tonnes of methanol a day and is being built by Pune-based Thermax Energy with gasification technology from Vadodara\u2019s Ankur Scientific, and will be owned by the port authority. Both companies are betting that the Government of India\u2019s policy to convert ports along the western coast into \u201cgreen ports\u201d will create demand for a fuel that the global shipping industry is being obliged to adopt under International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IMO\u2019s 2023 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Strategy aims for net-zero emissions from international shipping by or around 2050. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Methanol made from renewable feedstocks can cut a vessel\u2019s CO\u2082 emissions by up to 95% and NOx (nitrous oxides) by up to 80%, according to the Methanol Institute, an industry body, while eliminating sulphur oxides and particulate matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ankur Jain, who heads Ankur Scientific, said his company\u2019s role lies in the first stage of a two-step process. \u201cThe starting point for most fuels and chemicals is going to be syngas because syngas typically has hydrogen, CO (carbon monoxide) and CO\u2082,\u201d he told The Hindu<\/em> in an interview. Gasification, he explained, sits between combustion and pyrolysis. \u201cYou are heating it in the absence of oxygen, taking it out, improving its quality, burning them a bit and then breaking them down into hydrogen and CO or syngas.\u201d Thermax will handle the second step, converting that syngas into methanol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once started, the gasification reaction sustains its own heat, requiring only a brief external fuel input \u2014 about 10-15 litres of oil for half an hour at startup, Mr. Jain said. But the plant still draws conventional grid electricity to run its motors, pumps and controls. \u201cTo make it greener, your electricity should also be either generated as part of the process or should be green,\u201d Mr. Jain said. He acknowledged that meeting stricter international carbon-intensity thresholds would eventually require sourcing that power from renewables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt [juliflora<\/em>] is one of the best feedstocks because it is hardwood, dense, has a good energy profile, and low on acids,\u201d Mr. Jain said, adding that the Gujarat government already wants the species cleared. The plant will be certified to run on other agricultural residues such as bagasse and cotton stalk, which Jain estimates could, at their maximum potential, displace up to a third of India\u2019s oil imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cost remains the central obstacle. Conventional methanol from natural gas, Mr. Jain said, was \u201cabout \u20b930 a kg\u201d before the war in Ukraine pushed prices to \u20b970-\u20b980. Green methanol trades internationally at $700-800 a tonne, and e-methanol at around $2,000 a tonne. \u201cAt this point of time, they are being driven by penalties,\u201d Mr. Jain said, pointing to European Union rules that levy heavy charges on ships entering EU ports without a minimum share of green fuel. Green and e-methanol source their power from renewable sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n India has begun aligning policy with the shift. In August 2023, it amended its shipbuilding financial assistance policy to offer a flat 30% subsidy for vessels propelled by green fuels, including methanol, ammonia and hydrogen. The Kandla project, Mr. Jain said, is a demonstration. Commercially viable plants, he said, would need to scale to 100-500 tonnes a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A plant that has been ranked as one of the \u201ctop 100 invasive species in the world\u201d and has for decades threatened biodiversity in Kutch\u2019s Banni grasslands, may soon be harnessed for the production of green methanol and fuel for ocean-going ships. The Mexican-origin shrub called Prosopis juliflora, known as gando baval in the region, vilayati keekar in north India and velikathan in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":176983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"Prosopis juliflora, which has for decades threatened biodiversity in Kutch\u2019s Banni grasslands, will be turned into methanol; the global shipping industry is being obliged to adopt green fuels under International Maritime Organization rules","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5842,10416,25559,21663,20660],"supplier":[17504,27913,17516,16949,27960],"class_list":["post-176968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biomass","tag-circulareconomy","tag-gasification","tag-greenmethanol","tag-shipping","supplier-ankur-scientific","supplier-deendayal-port-authority-dpa","supplier-government-of-india-national-portal-of-india","supplier-international-maritime-organization-imo","supplier-thermax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177001,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176968\/revisions\/177001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176968"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=176968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}