India relaxes curbs on petcoke imports

New Delhi: India relaxed some restrictions on imports of petcoke for use as feedstock in some industries, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said on Twitter on Wednesday.

India allowed imports of 500,000 tonnes of petcoke per year by aluminium companies and 1.4 million tonnes of petcoke by calcined petcoke makers, a trade ministry notification posted by the DGFT on Twitter showed.

Usage of petcoke, a dirtier alternative to coal, in India has come under scrutiny due to rising pollution levels in major cities.

India’s imports of petcoke have declined this year as cement companies substituted some of their petcoke with coal to avoid production delays due to pollution-related policy changes. As the world’s largest consumer of petcoke, India imports over half its annual petcoke consumption of about 27 million tonnes, mainly from the US. Local producers include Indian Oil Corp, Reliance Industries and Bharat Petroleum Corp.

India is the world’s biggest consumer of petroleum coke, which is a dark solid carbon material that emits 11% more greenhouse gases than coal, according to the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.NextMAds