Joint Venture Company formed

NRL Bio Refinery

GUWAHATI, June 5: Numaligarh Refinery Limited has taken a giant step forward by establishing a joint venture, Assam Bio-Refinery Pvt. Limited (ABRPL) with equity participation of M/s Chempolis Oy of Finland and M/s Fortum 3 B.V. of Netherland to build and operate the first of its kind Bio Refinery in India which would generate renewable green fuel-bioethanol, other valuable chemicals and green power from bamboo biomass. The joint venture agreement was signed in New Delhi recently by MD NRL SK Barua, Sanjay Aggarwal, authorised representative of Fortum 3 B.V. and CEO Chempolis Oy, Finland Tomi Honkala in the presence of officials from all the partner companies including Director (Tech) NRL B. J. Phukan and Head (Legal) Fortum India Pvt.Ltd. The joint venture company incorporated on June 4 has 3 partners with major equity holding of 50% by NRL , 28% by Fortum 3.B.V. Netherland and 22% by Chempolis Oy, Finland.

"NRL's new venture shall produce 62 million litres of bio-ethanol by using around 0.5 million MT bamboo per annum which is going to be a game changer in terms of additional revenue generation for the bamboo farmers through sustainable cultivation, extraction and transportation of bamboo. It is indeed a historic moment for India's North East to garner first major (to be checked) foreign direct investment for setting up its first bamboo based Biorefinery" said NRL Managing Director SK Barua. This was stated in a press release.