Aemetis Inc., a renewable natural gas and renewable fuels company operating in the U.S. and India, today announced that the Aemetis plant in India received approval from the local Pollution Control Board (PCB) to restart the production of biodiesel and refined glycerin, enabling the company to fulfill allocations issued by government-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) and other customers. The company received official notice from the PCB on Feb. 22, allowing the restart of the plant after conducting a review of local air quality.

Universal Biofuels, a subsidiary of Aemetis, one of the largest biodiesel producers in India with an 80 million gallon per year plant in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, has been operating in India for more than 17 years. Universal Biofuels completed $112 million of revenues from biodiesel and refined glycerin deliveries in the year ended September 2024.

“The temporary pause in production at the India plant allowed us to conduct maintenance work,” said Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis. “We had produced enough product prior to the shutdown to have sufficient inventory on hand to meet our delivery commitments. The expansion of our production capacity last year to 80 million gallons per year supports the need for more than 1 billion gallons of new biodiesel production in India,” added McAfee.

The 25 billion gallon per year petroleum diesel market in India is a significant source of air pollution and health problems in India. A 5% blend of biodiesel has already been adopted by India in the National Biofuels Policy to improve the environment while creating new markets for agricultural and waste products. Currently, only about a 1% biodiesel blend is being implemented. Aemetis is well positioned to address the government’s requirement for increased biodiesel capacity.

Universal has already received $58 million of allocations for 2025 delivery from India OMCs. Universal expects to begin biodiesel shipments to OMCs in March under these allocations. To lead a planned IPO of the Universal Biofuels subsidiary this year, Aemetis recently appointed a new CEO and will announce a new CFO with recent IPO experience after completing a transition from his current position.

The potential expansion of Universal biodiesel production capacity to more than 200 million gallons per year is expected as a use of funds from the planned IPO to meet the growth in biodiesel demand which equates to 1.2 billion gallons annually. A key factor in the growth of Universal Biofuels production capacity is access to renewable oil feedstocks in India which could also include new policies to support imported feedstocks, including soybeans from farmers in the United States. The adoption of new policies in India that support access to feedstocks, including imports of renewable oils, directly support the expansion of Aemetis production volumes in India by using imported agricultural products in addition to local feedstocks.