A port that handles hundreds of millions of tonnes of cargo every year just became the launchpad for India's green fuel ambitions. On Saturday, September 26, 2026, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel joined Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal for the ground-breaking ceremony of a new 150 tonnes-per-day (TPD) e-methanol plant by Assam Petrochemicals Ltd. at the Deendayal Port Authority Complex, Kandla, Kutch.

Gujarat's coast meets Assam's industrial muscle

The project sits at the intersection of two state economies that rarely share a stage. Assam Petrochemicals Ltd., a state public-sector unit with decades of methanol manufacturing experience in the Northeast, is planting its newest and greenest facility not on home ground but on the shores of Kutch — leveraging the unmatched cargo throughput and maritime connectivity of Deendayal Port Authority, one of India's busiest ports by volume. CM Patel, posting in Hindi on X, called it 'an extraordinary convergence of Gujarat's rich maritime strength and Assam's industrial capacity in the precinct of Deendayal Port.'

That convergence is deliberate policy design, not coincidence. The port was renamed from Kandla Port to Deendayal Port in 2017, and since then it has been a centrepiece of the central government's port-led industrialisation drive under the Sagarmala programme. Hosting a downstream green fuel unit here follows the same logic: build capacity where ships dock, so fuel reaches vessels without crossing half the country by rail.

Why e-methanol, and why now

E-methanol — methanol produced from green hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide — is emerging as one of the most viable low-emission fuels for maritime transport. Global shipping is under mounting pressure to cut its carbon intensity, and Indian ports are racing to position themselves as green-fuel bunkering hubs. A 150 TPD facility at Kandla places India inside that global conversation in a concrete, measurable way.

Union Minister Sonowal, who leads the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and previously served as Assam's Chief Minister between 2016 and 2021, is a central thread connecting both states to this project. His ministry has actively promoted green fuel projects at major ports, and his presence at the bhoomi pujan (ground-breaking) underlines the Centre's direct stake in seeing this facility succeed. India's methanol economy push, championed by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas since the mid-2010s, now finds a new node on the western coastline.

'Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat' in steel and concrete

CM Patel explicitly framed the project as a 'living example' of the Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat vision — the 2015 Central initiative designed to foster cultural and economic integration between India's states. The phrase is often deployed ceremonially, but here it maps onto an actual capital asset: a petrochemical plant financed by an Assam PSU, built on Gujarat soil, serving a national and international shipping corridor.

Kutch has long anchored India's energy and chemical coastline, from Mundra's private port to the industrial clusters that spread inland from the Gulf. Adding an e-methanol production unit at Kandla deepens that identity and signals that Gujarat's maritime infrastructure is ready to absorb the next generation of clean-energy projects — not just facilitate the old ones.

The commissioning timeline and commercial offtake agreements for the plant are yet to be made public. But the ground is broken, three governments are aligned, and a port that has quietly handled India's cargo for decades just made its loudest statement yet about where the country's energy future is headed.