TruAlt Bioenergy to expand capacity, invest Rs 600 cr for setting up plants

TruAlt Bioenergy, which is among the largest biofuel players, is planning to expand its capacity by 2.7 lakh litres per day by next fiscal and will invest around Rs 600 crore to set up more plants.

The Bengaluru-based company is also expecting around 30 per cent revenue growth this fiscal year.

TruAlt is primarily into biofuels such as 1G ethanol, 2G ethanol, compressed biogas, sustainable aviation fuel, fermented organic manure, and green hydrogen.

It operates five 1G ethanol units with a capacity of 2 million litres per day, making it the country's largest ethanol producer while its compressed biogas capacity is 10 tonne per day.

"We are planning to augment our biofuel capacity by 2.7 lakh tonne per day. We will set up 10 more plants, taking our total to 15 and we envisage around Rs 600 crore investment towards this and these plants will come up in Bijapur in Karnataka and Pune and should be commissioned next fiscal," Vijay Nirani, founder and managing director of TruAlt, told PTI.

The land for these plants has already been identified, he added.

The company's existing plants are also in Bijapur and Pune.

It had clocked Rs 1,170 crore in topline last fiscal but has grown exponentially with achieving around Rs 700 crore in the first half of this fiscal. And Nirani expects at least 30 per cent topline growth this fiscal and earn around 18-20 per cent net margin.

Recently, TurAlt had entered into a USD 72-million compressed biogas joint venture with the national gas major GAIL India to set up 10 plants with targeted production of over 33 million kg of compressed biogas using organic waste as raw material.

GAIL will hold 49 per cent in the joint venture called Leafinti Bioenergy and TruAlt will have the remaining 51 per cent. The investment, a mix of debt and equity, is contingent on due diligence and regulatory approvals.

Each plant will process 10,000 kg of organic waste daily and produce 1,00,000 kg of compressed biogas. The initiative will also produce solid fermented organic manure and liquid fermented organic manure.

Nirani said massive expansion is due to two reasons -- the plants are running at over 90 per cent capacity and secondly due to the massive demand growth as the government is pushing ethanol blending and other biofuels.

He also said the next growth markets are his home state of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Odisha.

On the sustainable aviation fuel plan, he said the company, which is fully owned by him and his family has already singed non-disclosure agreement with a few airlines.