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Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said India will at the upcoming G20 meeting plans to pitch for a global alliance on biofuels on lines of the highly-successful international solar alliance. India, the world's third largest oil-consuming and importing nation, is now pushing for greater use of biofuels extracted from sugarcane, cereals and agri waste as a means to cut reliance on crude oil. He stated ‘We will utilise our G20 presidency to try and set up an international biofuel alliance like the International Solar Alliance.’

India is taking over the presidency of the group of 20 major economies, also called G20, and will host a meeting of the member nations in September next year. With nations from Brazil to the US producing biofuels, the alliance would look to develop an ecosystem for fuel standards and engines and collaboration on technology for faster adoption.

Puri said India is already using petrol mixed with 10 per cent ethanol extracted from sugarcane and other agri products (90 per cent petrol, 10 per cent ethanol). India imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and doping ethanol with petrol is aimed at reducing the import dependence. Also, biofuels have lesser emissions and aid in meeting carbon goals.