India’s CBG push hits manure bottleneck as plants struggle to find buyers

New Delhi: India's compressed biogas (CBG) push faces an escalating bottleneck. Plants can produce clean gas but struggle to sell the organic manure left behind, threatening project economics even as the government has committed ₹23,731 crore to expand the sector.

The problem is that producing gas is only half the business; every plant also produces large quantities of slurry that must be processed, stored and sold as organic fertiliser. Without buyers, operators face increasing costs, mounting inventory and the risk of shutting down plants. "The government secured the gas market, but forgot the slurry," said Sunil KM, director of KIS Group.

Of 1,908 registered CBG plants, 217 have been commissioned and 339 are under construction, according to the Indian Biogas Association. The expanding project pipeline makes finding a reliable market for manure critical to the sector's growth. "Manure is great for the soil, but you can only store it for a few days before physical capacity runs out. Without an assured manure offtake model, plants are being forced into low-capacity operations or almost virtual shutdowns," Sunil said.


A typical plant processing 100 tonnes of feedstock daily can produce about 4 tonnes of CBG, alongside 35-40 tonnes of solid fermented organic manure and up to 50,000 litres of liquid manure. With the proposed expansion of the sector, the volume of manure could reach millions of tonnes annually. Unlike gas, which benefits from an established offtake framework, organic manure has no comparable guaranteed market.

Farmers have little incentive to switch from chemical fertilisers, which are heavily subsidised.

The problem could also jeopardise government support. "If the plants are virtually stopped, they are unable to operate at optimum capacity, which means they will not receive the government's capital assistance either," Sunil said.

The oil ministry did not respond to ET's queries until press time.

The government had earlier offered market development assistance of ₹1,500 per tonne of manure sold, but the support has since been withdrawn. "We believe the fertiliser component of biogas plants must be equally energised to ensure end-to-end project viability, technically, financially and socially," said Gaurav Kedia, chairman, Indian Biogas Association.