The three public sector oil companies IOC, HPCL and BPCL have partially started the ethanol blending programme from the last week of November. By the end of the month, they expected to streamline the blending programme in 14 of the 20 notified states under the national ethanol blending programme.

Ethanol will be blended with petrol in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Himchal Pradesh, New Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. The union territories of Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Havel and Daman and Diu will also be part of the programme.

The ethanol manufacturers in Maharashtra have started supplying to the oil companies from November 24. The three companies together have signed purchase orders for 12 crore litre ethanol from companies in Maharashtra, said RG Mane, Secretary, Maharashtra Ethanol Manufacturer's Association.

The three oil companies together plan to blend 70 crore litre ethanol at 5 per cent with petrol by September 2011.

However, sources in the oil firms indicated that the price of ethanol blended petrol will be same as that of the unblended petrol.