SATAT scheme (SATAT)

The Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) scheme is the Government of India's flagship policy for commercial-scale compressed biogas, launched on 1 October 2018 by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. It aims to establish 5,000 CBG plants producing 15 million tonnes per annum of bio-CNG by 2030, with a combined private investment outlay of approximately ₹2 lakh crore.

The scheme's central instrument is an assured offtake contract between the producer and one of the public-sector Oil Marketing Companies — Indian Oil, BPCL or HPCL. The OMC issues a Letter of Intent, signs a 10-15 year long-term agreement, and lifts gas from the plant gate at a notified base price (revised periodically; recent levels are around ₹54-55 per kg of CBG at net calorific value of 50 MJ/kg). The OMC dispenses the gas through its CNG retail network or injects it into the City Gas Distribution grid, and the producer can also sell digestate as Fermented Organic Manure under PM PRANAM and the Market Development Assistance (MDA) of ₹1,500 per tonne.

Eligibility, in principle, is open to any entity that can produce CBG meeting IS 16087:2016 specifications. Plant capacities targeted under SATAT range from 2 tonnes per day to 50+ TPD of CBG. Capital support is layered: a one-time Central Financial Assistance of up to ₹4 crore per 4,800 kg-per-day plant under MNRE's National Bioenergy Programme, viability gap funding for select projects, and GST input credits.

Trade-offs to weigh: the assured price strips out market risk but caps upside if natural gas prices spike. The 10-15 year contract gives bankability but locks pricing during long inflationary periods unless escalation clauses are negotiated. Most importantly, SATAT does not solve the feedstock-supply problem — over half of the LOI-stage projects stall at financial closure because long-term feedstock contracts at predictable prices are hard to secure.