Union Petroleum and Pure Fuel Minister Hardeep Singh Puri
| Picture Credit score:
Karma Bhutia
Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri stated on Friday that the retail promoting value of flex gasoline, the E85 variant that has a better mix of ethanol, will likely be round ₹20 cheaper than the E20 petrol variant.
“I believe we now have consciously structured the pricing to make sure that customers are adequately compensated by making E85 roughly ₹20 per litre cheaper than E20,” the Oil Minister stated whereas launching the E85 variant at an Indian Oil Company (IOCL)-run retail outlet.
Presently, the E85 variant is priced at ₹82.12 a litre in Delhi towards ₹102.12 a litre of E20 blended petrol. The rollout commences throughout 48 public sector OMC shops (ROs) within the nation, enabling flex-fuel car customers to entry this cleaner gasoline.
E85 is a high-ethanol blended gasoline comprising 80–85 per cent ethanol and 14–19 per cent petrol, particularly designed to be used in flex-fuel automobiles. The initiative goals to facilitate the adoption of flex-fuel automobiles (FFVs), that are able to working on ethanol blends from E20 to E100, with out proscribing customers to a single mix.
New variant
The Minister defined that the newly launched variant, which has 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent petrol, will likely be out there at gasoline shops (ROs) with clearly displayed signage.
“E85 is a unique class. At gasoline bunks, a board will say very clearly that just for E85 compliant vehicles solely. You’ll purchase E85 as you need to contribute to minimize gasoline import payments, save the surroundings, and improve farmer’s revenue. I consider inside just a few weeks we can have about 50 to 100 ethanol shelling out stations in Delhi-NCR, Pune, Mumbai, and Nagpur, and so on. By 2026 finish, we can have 500 and by 2027 finish we can have 5,000 shelling out stations,” Puri emphasised.
The Minister emphasised that a number of nations, significantly Brazil have efficiently leveraged flex gasoline automobiles and are an intrinsic a part of their power dynamics. India is steadily shifting in that route.
Puri additionally famous that the push in direction of ethanol has led to an increase within the manufacturing capability to round 1,900 crore litres of ethanol towards a requirement of roughly 1,150 crore litres to fulfill the E20 petrol mixing mandate.
“If one out of two vehicles that are manufactured from now onwards and which could be very simple to do. If they’re E85 compliant, then we can have a state of affairs the place one other 318 crore litres of ethanol will be consumed. For 20 per cent ethanol mixing, we required round 1,150 crore litres ethanol. The capability put in is 1,800-1,900 crore litres. Immediately, it’s completely clear that the controversy of power safety Vs meals safety was baseless,” he defined.
Revealed on June 5, 2026
