French oil company explores opportunity to set up bio-energy plants in region; ASCDCL, Total Energies, others held online meeting today

Aurangabad, June 16:

To explore opportunities to invest in bio-energy plant in the region including Aurangabad, the French oil supermajor and one of the largest oil companies in the world, Total Energies, has held an online meeting with Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation Limited (ASCDCL), today morning.

ASCDCL facilitated the meeting.

It is learnt that the oil company approached ASCDCL through Invest India on the recommendation of the state's environment minister Aditya Thackeray.

The ASCDCL chief executive officer A K Pandey, Jules Dior from Total Energies, Pratap Monga from Adani Green Energy Limited, Vedant Raj from Invest India, and ASCDCL's Aditya Tiwari participated in the online meeting.

Pandey said, " Aurangabad facilitates a smooth rural and urban connection. Due to the consistent drought-like situation in Aurangabad and Marathwada region, the farming community greatly depends on livestock. During peak summers there are fodder camps held in different areas in the region which can become a good source of biomass for bioenergy production." Bio-energy plants can also help greatly in air pollution mitigation as the farming residue like stubble and other biomass can be used as raw material for the production of bio-energy, it is learnt.

It may be noted that the ASCDCL will act as a facilitator for the investor. It would provide information like availability of suitable land (of MIDC) for them to start the plant, availability of resources and raw materials in bulk, etc.