Spray Engineering Devices Ltd.

Indian sugar economics are being reshaped by higher cane costs, tighter operating efficiency requirements and the need to maximise value from steam, power, water and by-products

The FY26-27 fair and remunerative price of sugarcane is INR 365.0 per quintal, up from INR 355.0 for FY25-26, increasing the pressure on mills to improve recovery and energy intensity

Modern evaporation, heat recovery, crystallisation and MVR configurations can reduce steam demand and release bagasse for power or fuel, creating a measurable payback

The opportunity is not only new capacity: brownfield upgrades across a large installed base can be attractive where energy savings fund capex

However, mill liquidity, cane availability, sugar prices and government diversion/export decisions make award timing cyclical

India reached 20.0% ethanol blending in 2025-26, while production capacity expanded from 421.0 crore litres in 2014 to approximately 2,000.0 crore litres in 2026

This creates a large installed base that requires debottlenecking, feedstock flexibility, wastewater treatment, heat integration and yield improvement

The opportunity is shifting from simple capacity addition toward efficient, multi-feedstock and lower-emission systems as grain contributes a larger share and policy beyond 20.0% blending remains uncertain

The Company participates in distillery heat recovery, spentwash concentration, boilerless concepts and advanced ethanol

Its LanzaTech collaboration for bagasse-to-ethanol can widen the addressable market, but next-generation facilities carry technology scale-up, financing, feedstock and guarantee risk

Industrial water demand, pollution enforcement and the economics of freshwater scarcity support investment in reuse, evaporation and zeroliquid-discharge systems

The National Framework for Safe Reuse of Treated Waste Water promotes industrial reuse, while CPCB programmes for sugar, distillery, textile, pulp and paper and tannery emphasise technology upgrades, wastewater minimisation and recycling

ZLD is not a universal requirement for every plant, but molasses-based distilleries and certain textile applications face particularly strong compliance pressure

MVR and low-temperature evaporation can recover water and reduce fuel use, which can improve lifecycle economics versus conventional thermal evaporation

Ethanol Blended Petrol programme: The National Policy on Biofuels and the EBP programme advanced the 20.0% blending target to 2025-26

Government data show the target was achieved and installed capacity reached approximately 2,000.0 crore litres in 2026

This sustains a large downstream market for distillery, evaporation, wastewater and energy-integration solutions, although policy support does not guarantee individual customer solvency or project profitability

Ethanol capacity and financing support: The Department of Food and Public Distribution has operated interest-subvention schemes for sugar- and grain-based ethanol capacity, generally providing support at 6.0% per annum or 50.0% of bank interest under applicable schemes

Such support can improve project financeability, but eligibility, commissioning deadlines, feedstock availability and OMC offtake must be assessed project by project

Water reuse and industrial pollution control: The National Framework for Safe Reuse of Treated Waste Water encourages industrial reuse and state-level market models

CPCB charters for sugar, distillery, textile, pulp and paper and tannery focus on process upgrades, effluent-treatment augmentation and reuse

The demand linkage is strongest where discharge norms, freshwater constraints and plant economics are all binding