A fuel is only useful where a ship can take it on. That sounds obvious, and it is the single biggest problem with green marine fuels worldwide — the plants that make them are usually thousands of kilometres from the ports where ships actually bunker.
On 26 September 2026, the foundation stone was laid for India's first port-based e-methanol plant at the Deendayal Port Authority (DPA) in Kandla, Gandhidham, Gujarat, by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal, and Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma. The words port-based are the interesting part of the announcement.
What e-methanol is
Methanol is CH₃OH, the simplest alcohol. What makes a given batch of it green or not is entirely a question of where its carbon and hydrogen came from.
Conventional methanol is made from natural gas or coal. The carbon in the molecule is fossil carbon, dug up and released when the fuel is burnt, so burning it adds carbon to the atmosphere that was not previously circulating.
Green methanol divides into two families. Bio-methanol is made from biomass. E-methanol — the kind being built here — is synthesised by reacting green hydrogen with carbon dioxide.
The Kandla plant will use renewable power, water and biogenic CO₂. The chain runs: renewable electricity splits water by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen, a process we set out in our explainer on green hydrogen and electrolysis; that hydrogen is then combined with captured CO₂ over a catalyst to form methanol and water.
Biogenic is the word carrying the environmental claim, and it is worth being precise about. Biogenic CO₂ comes from biological sources — fermentation, biomass processing, biogas upgrading — where the carbon was recently absorbed from the atmosphere by a plant. Burning a fuel made from it returns carbon that was recently taken out, so the cycle is approximately closed. Carbon captured from a fossil source is a different proposition: using it delays the emission rather than closing a loop, because the carbon still originated underground. The distinction is what separates a genuinely low-carbon fuel from an accounting exercise, and examiners at the descriptive level reward candidates who make it.
Why shipping wants a liquid
Ships are hard to decarbonise, and the reason is energy density and duration. A container vessel crossing from Asia to Europe must carry weeks of propulsion energy in a hull designed around cargo, not fuel. Batteries are far too heavy for that duty.
Among the candidate low-carbon fuels, methanol's advantage is not performance — it holds roughly half the energy per litre of conventional marine fuel oil, so a ship needs about twice the tank volume. Its advantage is handling.
Methanol is a liquid at ambient temperature and pressure. It can be stored in largely conventional tanks, pumped through largely conventional lines, and bunkered by largely conventional procedures. Dual-fuel engines that run on it are commercially available.
Compare the alternatives. Liquid hydrogen must be held at around 20 kelvin — cryogenic storage, with boil-off losses and an entirely new bunkering infrastructure. Ammonia is liquid under modest pressure and carries no carbon at all, which is attractive, but it is toxic to humans and demands handling protocols that do not yet exist at scale in ports. Methanol is toxic too and needs care, but it sits far closer to what ports and crews already do.
That is what makes methanol a near drop-in fuel, and drop-in is the decisive property when the objective is to change the fuel without replacing the world's ships and terminals. Our explainer on India's green shipping corridors covers the complementary effort at berth, where shore power removes emissions from ships that are stationary rather than sailing.
The regulatory driver
None of this would be commercially rational without a rule forcing it, and there is one.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the UN specialised agency for shipping, headquartered at London. International shipping is not covered by national emissions commitments — a voyage from India to Europe belongs to no country's inventory — so the IMO is where the obligation has to be created. Its framework targets a substantial reduction in the carbon intensity of international shipping by 2030 and net-zero emissions from international shipping by around 2050, with market-based measures to price the gap between fossil and green fuels.
That regulatory pressure is why shipowners are ordering methanol-capable vessels now, and why a plant able to supply them has a market. The release identifies the target traffic precisely: vessels on the Asia-Europe International Trade Corridor, one of the world's busiest routes — and Kandla sits on it.
The plant, and the cost claim
The project is a joint initiative of the Deendayal Port Authority and Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited (APCL) of Namrup, with capital contribution in a 76:24 ratio. Total investment is ₹2,300 crore, in scalable modules:
- Phase I — 50 tonnes per day, ₹1,200 crore, targeted for January 2027
- Phase II — a further 100 tonnes per day, ₹1,100 crore, targeted for March 2027
Total capacity is 150 tonnes per day. DPA's contribution includes ₹567.32 crore of equity, 75 acres of land, desalinated water, and renewable energy in the form of green hydrogen. The project is expected to create more than 3,500 direct and indirect jobs.
The headline commercial claim is US$750 per tonne against a global rate of about US$1,300 per tonne. If that holds it is the most consequential number in the announcement, because cost is the entire barrier to green marine fuel. But it should be read as a projection for a plant not yet built, and the phased, modular construction is itself an acknowledgement that the economics will be tested at 50 tonnes per day before ₹1,100 crore more is committed. That is sensible engineering and sensible finance, and it is worth describing as such rather than as a limitation.
The honest scale
One comparison belongs in any assessment. At 150 tonnes per day, the plant produces roughly 55,000 tonnes a year. Estimates of what green methanol production would need to reach to replace all marine fuel by 2050 run to over 540 million tonnes a year, against global green methanol capacity currently measured in single-digit millions of tonnes.
Kandla is therefore a very small fraction of a global requirement — and saying so is not a criticism. First plants are demonstrations: they establish that the process works at industrial scale in Indian conditions, build the supply chain around themselves, and produce the operating data that makes the second and tenth plants financeable. The release's own language about stimulating the complete green energy value chain around Kandla — transportation, storage, supply and ancillaries — describes exactly that function.
What distinguishes this project from most green methanol proposals is the geography. Globally, the twelve largest bunkering hubs account for roughly 40 per cent of world ship bunkering, while much green methanol capacity is being built far from any of them — so the fuel must be shipped to the ships, adding cost and emissions. Producing at the port removes that leg entirely. For a fuel whose whole problem is cost, eliminating a transport stage is not a detail.
The wider maritime context sits in our piece on Sagarmala and Maritime India Vision 2030: the government has stated an intention to add 100 ships to the merchant fleet over five years and to place India among the world's top five ship-owning nations by 2047, with a DPA-Cochin Shipyard project at Vadinar worth ₹1,520 crore and a proposed shipbuilding and repair cluster at Kuchhadi, Porbandar.
🔑 Revision block
- The event: 26 September 2026 — foundation stone for India's first port-based e-methanol plant at Deendayal Port Authority, Kandla, Gandhidham, Gujarat
- Present: Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel, Union MoPSW Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Assam CM Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma
- Partners: DPA and Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited (APCL), Namrup — capital ratio 76:24
- Capacity and cost: 150 tonnes per day; total ₹2,300 crore — Phase I 50 tpd / ₹1,200 crore by January 2027, Phase II +100 tpd / ₹1,100 crore by March 2027
- DPA's contribution: ₹567.32 crore equity, 75 acres of land, desalinated water, renewable energy as green hydrogen
- Jobs: more than 3,500 direct and indirect
- Cost claim: US$750 per tonne against a global rate of about US$1,300 per tonne
- Target traffic: vessels on the Asia-Europe International Trade Corridor
- Methanol: CH₃OH, the simplest alcohol; conventional methanol uses fossil carbon from natural gas or coal
- Green methanol families: bio-methanol (from biomass) and e-methanol (green hydrogen + CO₂)
- Feedstock here: renewable power, water and biogenic CO₂
- Biogenic vs fossil CO₂: biogenic carbon was recently absorbed from the atmosphere, so the cycle approximately closes; fossil-sourced carbon only delays the emission
- Why shipping wants methanol: it is a liquid at ambient temperature and pressure, so storage, pumping and bunkering use largely existing infrastructure — near drop-in; dual-fuel engines are available
- The penalty: roughly half the energy per litre of conventional marine fuel oil, so about twice the tank volume
- Alternatives: liquid hydrogen needs cryogenic storage around 20 K; ammonia is carbon-free but toxic and lacks port handling at scale
- Regulator: the International Maritime Organization (IMO), UN specialised agency for shipping, headquartered at London; international shipping falls outside national emissions inventories
- IMO trajectory: substantial carbon intensity reduction by 2030 and net zero from international shipping by around 2050
- Scale check: 150 tpd is about 55,000 tonnes a year; replacing all marine fuel by 2050 would need over 540 million tonnes a year of green methanol
- The geographic point: the twelve largest bunkering hubs handle about 40 per cent of world bunkering, while much green methanol capacity is far from them — producing at the port removes a transport leg
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. E-methanol is produced by: (a) Gasifying coal and purifying the syngas (b) Reacting green hydrogen with carbon dioxide (c) Fermenting sugarcane molasses (d) Reforming natural gas with steam
→ (b) — bio-methanol is the biomass-derived alternative.
Q2. The chief handling advantage of methanol over hydrogen as a marine fuel is that methanol is: (a) Non-toxic (b) Higher in energy per litre than marine fuel oil (c) A liquid at ambient temperature and pressure (d) Produced without electricity
→ (c) — liquid hydrogen requires cryogenic storage at around 20 kelvin.
Q3. "Biogenic" carbon dioxide differs from fossil-sourced CO₂ in that it: (a) Was recently absorbed from the atmosphere by biological processes (b) Contains no carbon-13 isotope (c) Is chemically a different molecule (d) Cannot be used to make methanol
→ (a) — which is what allows the cycle to approximately close.
Q4. The Kandla e-methanol plant's total planned capacity is: (a) 50 tonnes per day (b) 500 tonnes per day (c) 1,000 tonnes per day (d) 150 tonnes per day
→ (d) — in two phases of 50 and 100 tonnes per day.
Q5. Methanol's principal disadvantage relative to conventional marine fuel oil is that it: (a) Cannot be used in dual-fuel engines (b) Holds roughly half the energy per litre, requiring about twice the tank volume (c) Freezes at ambient sea temperatures (d) Corrodes all steel tanks
→ (b)
Q6. Ammonia as a marine fuel is attractive because it contains no carbon, but its main obstacle is that it is: (a) Explosive at all concentrations (b) Only available as a solid (c) Toxic, requiring handling protocols not yet at scale in ports (d) More expensive than liquid hydrogen
→ (c)
Q7. The International Maritime Organization is headquartered at: (a) Geneva (b) London (c) Rotterdam (d) Singapore
→ (b) — it is the UN specialised agency for shipping.
Q8. Emissions from international shipping require an IMO framework principally because: (a) Ships are exempt from all environmental law (b) Only the IMO can measure marine emissions (c) Shipping emissions are negligible nationally (d) A voyage between two countries falls outside either country's national emissions inventory
→ (d)
Q9. Locating an e-methanol plant at a port is significant because: (a) Ports have cheaper electricity than inland sites (b) It removes the transport leg between production and the point where ships bunker (c) Methanol cannot be transported by pipeline (d) Port land is exempt from environmental clearance
→ (b) — much global green methanol capacity is far from major bunkering hubs.
Q10. Consider the following statements: 1. The Kandla plant's annual output would meet a substantial share of global marine fuel demand. 2. A first industrial-scale plant produces operating data that makes subsequent plants financeable. Which is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2
→ (b) — about 55,000 tonnes a year against a requirement measured in hundreds of millions.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Energy transition and maritime affairs both appear regularly in the NDA general ability paper, and this item sits at their intersection.
The fuel-chemistry question asks what distinguishes green hydrogen, blue hydrogen, grey hydrogen, bio-methanol and e-methanol. The answer in every case is the source of the input, not the molecule — green hydrogen is chemically identical to grey hydrogen. Candidates who learn the colours as properties of the gas rather than of its production route get these wrong.
The organisation question asks which UN body handles shipping and where it sits. IMO, London. It is confused with the ILO at Geneva, which handles seafarers' labour conditions, and with UNCTAD, which reports on maritime trade.
The port question asks which major port is where. Kandla, now Deendayal Port, in Gujarat, is among the most asked because of its cargo volumes, and the renaming itself is a likely question.
The physics question covers energy density, cryogenic storage temperatures and electrolysis. Liquid hydrogen at around 20 K is the number worth holding.
For the SSB interview, this project supports a good answer on energy transition, and one that avoids both cheerleading and dismissal. A candidate who says the significance is not the tonnage but the location — that putting production at the bunkering point removes a cost stage in a fuel whose only real problem is cost — is making an argument about industrial strategy. Adding honestly that 55,000 tonnes a year is a demonstration rather than a solution shows judgement, which is what the interview is assessing.
Preparing for NDA? Energy questions are won on the distinction between a molecule and its production route — the colour describes the process, not the gas. Build the base with our NDA general ability notes, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Col D.N. Sharma — Defence studies faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.