New Aemetis Feedstock Refining Plant

By DTN Staff

OAKHURST, N.J. (DTN) -- Aemetis Inc. announced Wednesday that the Universal Biofuels subsidiary of Aemetis in Kakinada, India, has agreed to acquire a site to construct a tallow oil refining facility, which will be designed to supply feedstock to the existing Aemetis 50 million-gallon-per-year biodiesel plant located on the east coast of India. The refining facility will provide future feedstock supply to the Aemetis 90-million-gallon sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel plant being built in Riverbank, California.

In addition to the feedstock pretreatment unit already operational at the Aemetis biodiesel plant in Kakinada, the new feedstock refining facility will expand the range of feedstocks that can be used for biodiesel, SAF and RD production to include crude tallow oil. Recent regulations adopted by the Indian government encourage oil refiners and fuel distributors to purchase biodiesel for blending into petroleum diesel. The new feedstock refining facility will expand access to India renewable oil feedstock for existing and future Aemetis renewable fuel plants in India and California.

Aemetis built, owns and operates the Kakinada biodiesel plant with an installed capacity of 150,000 metric tons per year, equal to about 50 million gallons of biodiesel production annually. The Aemetis Kakinada plant is one of the largest biodiesel production facilities in India and can process a variety of vegetable oil, animal oils and waste oil feedstocks into biodiesel that meet international product standards.

The Kakinada biodiesel plant has been upgraded to covert the crude glycerin byproduct from the biodiesel refining process into refined glycerin for pharmaceutical and industrial customers. DeSmet-Ballestra, a leading biodiesel production technology company based in Europe, supplied the design and engineering for the Kakinada plant.

"Our circular bioeconomy of renewable and carbon-negative fuels facilities includes our Kakinada biodiesel facility in India, which provides Aemetis unique global access to low carbon intensity, non-edible, renewable waste oils for the production of sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel and biodiesel," said Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis. "Expanding our India operation to produce refined oil feedstock to supply Aemetis production plans in India and California demonstrates our commitment to fighting global climate change, improving air quality and creating jobs in disadvantaged communities worldwide."

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