Rules & carbon

It signals a decade-long, consolidated commitment with offtake, price, capital aid and pipeline support under one ministry, which reduces the multi-scheme fragmentation that used to raise project risk. But an outlay is a framework, not a guarantee for any single plant - feedstock and execution still bind.

They are policy ambitions, not committed capacity. With 217 plants commissioned against a 5,000-plant target the delta is enormous, and closing it depends on feedstock, financing and execution rather than on the target being restated. Model against commissioning trends.

A high LOI count with few commissioned plants points at permitting, feedstock or financing bottlenecks rather than at a demand shortfall - so it should prompt diligence into why local plants stalled. The national ratio of 108 commissioned against 1,094 LOIs is the template for that analysis.

Biochar carbon-removal credits under Verra VM0044 traded around USD 125-170 per tonne CO2e in 2025-26 - S&P Global spot near 150, Puro.earth around 125-145, Sylvera's 2025 average about 164 - while AD methane-avoidance credits traded far lower, with traditional avoidance credits as low as USD 5-15. Removals command roughly a 10-20 times premium and are a separate stream.

Biochar is a durable carbon-removal product with its own methodology in Verra VM0044, its own permanence profile and its own buyers, whereas CBG's credit is methane avoidance. Combining them misrepresents the climate claim and risks invalidating both, so they are accounted and marketed separately.

Unlike manure and waste pathways, there is no robust peer-reviewed life-cycle assessment of Napier-based CBG in Indian conditions. Existing work is largely lab and pilot yield studies, so the carbon intensity of a Napier-fed plant - accounting for cultivation, fertiliser, water and land use - is genuinely uncertain and should be stated as such.

Reduced stubble-burning air pollution, rural employment and nutrient recycling through digestate are credible, but should be stated qualitatively unless separately quantified. The water footprint of irrigated energy crops is the countervailing item and should be disclosed alongside them.

As upside, not as a base-case pillar. Voluntary avoidance credit prices are volatile and often below USD 10, MRV costs real money, and eligibility and additionality both carry risk. The core revenue remains CBG plus FOM, with carbon as a contingent add-on.

The IEA's 2025 outlook sees demand roughly tripling in India. Earlier IEA analysis found that biomethane could cost-effectively meet 10% of India's natural gas demand today, rising to almost two thirds by 2040, with India's biomethane potential around 35 bcm by 2040 in its sustainable scenario.

India's roughly 217 commissioned CBG plants and 0.4 MMSCMD of output are small against the EU's biomethane base and its 35 bcm target, which frames CBG as an early-stage growth sector with large headroom rather than a mature one. The headroom and the delivery risk are the same fact.

Stable, long-horizon offtake and pricing plus residue and waste feedstocks - rather than land-competing energy crops - underpin durable growth. Both the EU's 35 bcm target and India's 5,000-plant target show that volume ambitions outrun feedstock and execution unless backed by evidence; abrupt subsidy change in Germany and over-reliance on local CHP demand in early Denmark each stalled growth in their turn.