Guwahati: Two foreign companies have picked up a stake in the first bio-refinery project in the country to be executed by Numaligarh Refinery Limited.

The company on Tuesday said it has formed a joint venture, the Assam Bio-Refinery Pvt Ltd (ABRPL) with equity participation of Chempolis Oy of Finland and Fortum 3 B.V. of Netherlands to build and operate the first-of-its-kind bio-refinery in India.

The bio-refinery will generate renewable green fuel bio-ethanol, other valuable chemicals and green power from bamboo biomass.

The joint venture agreement was recently signed in New Delhi by NRL managing director S.K. Barua, authorised representative of Fortum 3 B.V. Sanjay Aggarwal, and chief executive officer Chempolis Oy, Finland, Tomi Honkala in the presence of officials from all the partner companies, including NRL director (tech) B.J. Phukan and the legal head of Fortum India Pvt Ltd. The joint venture company, incorporated on Monday, has three partners with a major equity holding of 50 per cent by NRL, 28 per cent by Fortum 3.B.V. and 22 per cent by Chempolis Oy. The cost of the project is Rs 1,000 crore.

"NRL's new venture shall produce 62 million litres of bio-ethanol by using around 0.5 million metric tonne of bamboo per annum, which is going to be a game changer in terms of additional revenue generation for the bamboo farmers through sustainable cultivation, extraction and transportation of bamboo," said the NRL managing director.

Bio-ethanol shall be produced from bamboo as feedstock technology by Chempolis Oy, with other valuable chemicals and bio-coal. Bio-coal will be used for production of steam and green power to the bio-refinery.

The company said the Centre has recently stepped up support for production of bio-ethanol, most prominently by means of the new bio-ethanol policy for mandatory blending of Ethanol with gasoline upto 10 per cent. The new bio-ethanol policy aims to spur investment to set up projects with a total production capacity of 1 billion litres of fuel ethanol every year.

"This project has a clear role in the fight against climate change. It can also have a big positive impact on local communities. It will provide employment opportunities for thousands of people and in the long run it will help local communities to become self-sustainable and enhance their living standards," a company release said.