Bamboo is one of the major non-food biomass resources available abundantly in North-East India and is amongst the fastest growing plants. Assam-based Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), a subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum, would soon explore the feasibility for production of ethanol from bamboo biomass.

The downstream oil company today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Finland-based company, Chempolis Oy, for carrying out a feasibility study. Bamboo is one of the major non-food biomass resources available abundantly in North-East India and is amongst the fastest growing plants. Chempolis Oy is a Finland registered company and has developed a patented technology – formicobio, for processing non-food raw materials into cellulosic ethanol, cellulosic sugars, bio-chemicals and bio-coal.As per the MoU, NRL and Chempolis would jointly undertake an assessment study for ascertaining the availability of the required feedstock in North-Eastern India.