India’s newly formed Biodiesel Manufacturers Association taps Gupta as chairman and president

Sanjeev Gupta, president of Aemetis International and chairman of Aemetis subsidiary Universal Biofuels, has been appointed chairman and president of India’s newly formed Biodiesel Manufacturers Association (BEMA).

BEMA was launched as an eight-member association with a focus on expanding the biodiesel market in India. The organization will serve to further the interests of biodiesel manufacturers by lobbying for the removal of regulatory hurdles, while educating India’s corporate and retail consumers about the environmental and cost benefits of biodiesel.

“With the deregulation of the diesel market in India and ending of diesel subsidies last October, India is a new frontier for Aemetis to grow in a large 25 billion gallon diesel market,” said Gupta. “With the recent approval of direct sales to bulk customers, we have launched direct delivery of biodiesel to customers and are moving rapidly to expand production at our 50-million-gallon-per-year-capacity East Coast plant in Kakinada to supply the domestic India market.”

Aemetis, which is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., U.S.A., is an advanced renewable fuels and biochemical company focused on the acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative technologies that replace traditional petroleum-based products by the conversion of first-generation ethanol and biodiesel plants into advanced biorefineries.

Founded in 2006, Aemetis owns and operates a 60-million-gallon-per-year ethanol plant in the California Central Valley near Modesto. It also owns and operates a 50-million-gallon-per-year renewable chemical and advanced fuel production facility on the East Coast of India, producing high quality distilled biodiesel and refined glycerin for customers in India and Europe.