India: 132 CBG plants under SATAT, 920 t per day. Far from the target of 5,000 plants

Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri reported on 5 January 2026 that 132 compressed biogas (CBG) plants with a combined production capacity of 920 t per day had been commissioned in the country. The data concern the SATAT programme (Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation), which envisaged building 5,000 plants.

What SATAT is

The programme was launched on 1 October 2018. Oil and gas companies (IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, GAIL and IGL) invited entrepreneurs to build CBG plants and to sell the gas, which is meant to give producers long-term offtake. The feedstock is crop residues, cattle manure and municipal waste. According to the ministry's presentation of November 2024, the gas went to 245 retail outlets, and 47 distribution companies bought it under the so-called synchronisation scheme.

The dynamics in numbers

According to the same MoPNG presentation, as of 30 September 2024, 78 CBG plants had been commissioned and 72 were under construction, and the oil companies planned to build 195 plants, on their own or through joint venture companies. The January 2026 release speaks of 132 plants. Down To Earth reported in 2023 that SATAT envisages 5,000 BioCNG plants and 15 million t of BioCNG by 2023–24. The scale of 132 plants shows that delivery is many times lower than the original declarations.

Incentives for investors

The ministry's presentation lists support under the programme: assistance from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy of 4 crore rupees for every 4,800 kg/day of capacity (up to 10 crore per plant), assistance for biomass aggregation (50% of the cost of machinery, up to 9 crore per plant), financing of up to half the cost of a pipeline connecting a plant to the city network (up to 28.75 crore per project) and a market development subsidy of 1,500 rupees per tonne of FOM and LFOM fertiliser from CBG plants. The CBG blending obligation, rising to 5% of CNG/PNG sales, was also mentioned.

The scale of 920 t per day

A capacity of 920 t of CBG per day is about 335,000 t per year at full utilisation, that is about 2% of the 15 million t per year that the ministry indicates as the CBG production potential in India. Capacity is not the same as production: IAmRenew wrote in its headline about "production" of 920 t per day, and Energetica India about "production capacity". The available releases give neither actual production nor the capacity utilisation rate.

What this means for Poland and Europe

The SATAT example shows that ambitious numerical targets in biomethane programmes may not coincide with the real pace of investment; the causes (demand, financing, implementation barriers) require a separate analysis. When assessing Polish and EU biomethane targets, it is worth comparing them with the pace at which plants have been commissioned so far.