Guwahati, Sept. 14: The Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) today signed an MoU with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) for sustainable bamboo supply chain development for its upcoming bio-refinery.

The MoU was signed in New Delhi by UNIDO representative in India, René Van Berkel and NRL chief general manager (marketing & business development) Bruno Ekka in the presence of NRL managing director P. Padmanabhan and other officials of NRL, UNIDO, Finland-based Chempolis Oy, technology partner for NRL bio-refinery; FORTUM, clean-energy company and Finnfund, a Finnish development fund company.

The plant shall have capacity to process five lakh tonnes of green bamboo on an annual basis and the bio-ethanol so produced would primarily be used to blend NRL petrol as mandated by the National Policy on Bio-fuels, with the surplus to be sold to other oil marketing companies.

The refinery is designed to produce 49,000 tonnes of bio ethanol annually. The project is estimated to cost Rs 950 crore.

Under the MoU, the Vienna-headquartered UNIDO will collaborate closely with NRL on matters of mutual interest in order to achieve the common objectives - sustainable and efficient bamboo feedstock harvesting, developing capacities of the value chain and government institutions to participate in the development of the bamboo sector.

The MoU will also look into demonstration of viable technologies for primary processing of bamboo at cluster level and expand access of youths to job-oriented and demand-driven skills focusing within the bamboo value chain.

The UN agency will work with the identified agencies in the northeastern states where bamboo will be sourced from the communities by setting micro and mini-bamboo processing centres and adding value to the supply chain with other bamboo industry players.

An NRL official said the bio-refinery project is expected to give a fillip to bamboo cultivation in the region. The government has pledged its support to the project.