New Delhi: India's second-largest fuel retailer has pushed back on the suggestion that E20 petrol is about to be withdrawn. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) said on Thursday that no such decision exists. What is actually under discussion, the company said, is whether owners of older vehicles should be given access to a lower-ethanol blend, and how a second grade of petrol could be moved through India's fuel-distribution network if that route is taken.
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CMD Sanjay Khanna made the remarks on a media call held after the company's annual shareholder meeting. He said he saw neither an operational nor a logistical obstacle to a switch from E20 back to E10, should the government revise the blending policy.
"I never said that E20 will be changed to E10," he said. The debate in some quarters, he explained, is over whether older vehicles should have the option of a lower-ethanol fuel.
"That doesn't mean E20 will be out and E10 will be in," he said. Khanna was categorical that the regime has not changed. "Nothing has been finalised," he said. "But to answer your question, what if it happens or what are the changes required? I will say nothing because already we established E20. It's only a matter of changing from E20 to E10, or suppose it has to be done. On that account, we don't see as a company any challenge for that matter. None of the oil companies will have a challenge to go from E20 to E10."
Asked what oil marketing companies would have to change if E10 were reintroduced, he said existing infrastructure would not be a significant hurdle. He added that the company would inform the media once a decision is reached. "As of now, various aspects are being considered, but nothing has yet got finalised. Once it will be done, we'll be definitely calling you and sharing it with you," he said.
The distinction Khanna drew matters. Replacing one blend with another is a different exercise from running an additional grade alongside E20, and it is the second option that carries the heavier logistical burden given the size of India's distribution system.
Khanna acknowledged as much. "What are challenges related to supplies of another grade of (petrol)... those are challenges being debated," he said.
The wider policy conversation is over whether E10 petrol, with 10 percent ethanol, should be sold alongside E20, which carries 20 percent. Consumers and some industry stakeholders have raised concerns about how higher blends affect vehicles and about fuel availability. India has raised ethanol content in petrol in stages, with the aim of trimming crude imports, cutting emissions and supporting the domestic ethanol industry.
E20 was rolled out last year. Since April 1, it has been the only petrol variant sold at fuel stations nationwide.
Complaints have followed, particularly from owners of non-BS-VI vehicles, who have reported reduced performance and damage to components. The government has repeatedly rejected those claims as far from the truth. The Oil Ministry has separately held that supplying multiple fuel grades is not a feasible proposition.
Earlier this month, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran and Akash Poojari, a consultant in the Department of Economic Affairs, argued in an opinion piece that a lower-ethanol petrol variant should be restored to protect millions of older vehicles.
The two wrote that the evidence does not support broad claims of engine damage from E20. Their concern was narrower and centred on India's older two-wheelers.
Roughly 75 to 80 million two-wheelers built before BS-IV are still on Indian roads, and they run on carburettors. A carburettor cannot detect the additional oxygen that ethanol brings, so it does not compensate for it. The result is an engine drawing too little fuel for the air it takes in, which makes it run hot. Older rubber seals present a separate problem, the authors noted: they are not rated for ethanol and degrade on contact with it whatever the engine temperature.
Their recommendation was to keep a lower blend such as E10 available alongside E20, letting the ethanol programme continue while the older fleet is protected. The government should "protect the existing fleet while the retrofit programme catches up," the piece said.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas set out its objections several times last month. Requiring every petrol station to hold pure petrol, E10 and E20 at once would, it said, create substantial logistical difficulties.
The scale is the issue. India has over one lakh petrol pumps, served by refineries, terminals, depots and pipelines. Carrying multiple grades of base petrol across that network would push up handling costs, make inventory management more complex and reduce operational efficiency, the ministry said.
It also rejected the analogy with premium petrol. Premium fuels, it said, are niche products sold in small volumes at a considerable price premium, and do not constitute separate nationwide base-fuel streams. "Running parallel nationwide supply chains for pure petrol, E10 and E20 would be an entirely different proposition," the ministry said.
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That logistics question comes into play chiefly if E10 is added as an option for older vehicles rather than substituted for E20 — which is precisely the distinction Khanna was at pains to draw.
