Namrup, Assam: This day of Oct 5th, 2018 is a historic day for India, Northeast and Assam Petro-chemicals, a state-owned company for launching Asia's first cannisters based and India's first "Methanol Cooking Fuel Program". The program was inaugurated by Dr V K Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog and Chairman, Methanol Apex Committee at the Assam Petro-chemicals campus at Namrup.

500 households inside the Assam Petro Complex will be the first pilot project, scaling it to 40,000 households in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Goa and Karnataka. The project is a natural extension of our Prime Minister's vision of reducing import of crude and an effort to provide clean, import substitute, cost effective and pollution free cooking medium. Assam Petrochemicals Limited has been manufacturing methanol for the last 30 years and is in the process of upgrading their 100 TPD methanol plant to 600 TPD by Dec 2019.

The safe handling cannister based cooking stoves are from Swedish Technology and through a Technology transfer a large-scale cooking stove manufacturing plant will come up in India in the next 18 months producing 10 lakh Cookstoves and 1 Crore Cannisters per year.  This technology is very unique, it handles methanol extremely safely, does not need regulator or any piping system.

The cooking medium can directly substitute LPG, Kerosene, Wood, Charcoal and any other fuel for cooking. The gaseous form, Methanol - DME, can be blended in 20% ratio with LPG. LPG-DME blending program is expected to kickstart in the country by next year.

1.2 litres cannisters can last for full five hours on twin burners and 8 such Cannisters as rack can last for one month for a family of three. The cost of energy equivalent of one cylinder of LPG for Methanol is ₹ 650, compared to ₹ 850 per cylinder resulting in a minimum of 20% Savings. For instance, in Manipur the cost of transportation of LPG is ₹ 200, whereas same cost for Methanol will be ₹ 12. This provides for an excellent alternative as household fuel and commercial, institutional and fuel for restaurants. China uses 4 MMTA of Methanol as Cooking Fuel annually.

Methanol cooking fuel adoption as a safe, cannister-based LPG substitute promising local production, cost savings and reduced fuel imports. Launch of a methanol cooking fuel programme deploying cannister-based stoves via a 500-household pilot and planned multi-state scale-up, linked to domestic methanol production expansion and technology transfer to enable large-scale stove and cannister manufacturing. The system is presented as a safe, regulator-free alternative able to substitute conventional cooking fuels and to allow low-ratio blending of a methanol derivative with LPG, with stated cost and transport advantages supporting import substitution and pollution reduction objectives.