NEW DELHI, JUL 3 (IANS): The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas has dismissed as false and misleading information being spread on social media platforms that ethanol blended petrol (E20) is harmful for vehicles, causes higher pollution, and leads to water wastage in the production of crops for ethanol.
The ministry assured all vehicle owners that these fear-mongering claims are false, baseless, scientifically unfounded and inconsistent with extensive technical studies conducted by leading automotive research institutions. Regarding pollution, the ministry said ethanol-blended petrol causes significantly reduced carbon tail-pipe emissions from vehicles. Also, emissions owing to carbon molecules in ethanol are biogenic, i.e do not cause any net increment in carbon emissions in the environment at the vehicle’s tail-pipe level.
On claims of ants or bees getting attracted towards the fuel tanks of vehicles because of E20 fuel, it stated that fuel-grade ethanol used for petrol blending is produced through fermentation and distillation processes that eliminate residual sugars from the final product. Further, fuel ethanol contains denaturants, which are repellent to insects.
The factsheet also rejects as false claims such as a drastic drop in mileage of the vehicles because of the use of E20 fuel, engine parts getting damaged or corroded due to the use of E20 fuel, insurance companies or car manufacturers denying insurance or warranty claims if E20 fuel is used.
Saturday, July 4, 2026