Varhad Capital signs MoU with Velocys to develop Make-In-India, cost‑competitive biomass-to-SAF projects
HOUSTON and NAGPUR, India, April 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sustainable fuel technology provider Velocys and Varhad Capital Pvt Ltd (Varhad), an India-based Biofuel and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) project development company, today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to advance a new generation of biomass-to-Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) projects in India.
The SAF opportunity in India is driven by abundant agricultural residues, rapidly growing aviation demand, and policy focus on domestic production. The challenge lies in delivering SAF at a favorable cost and scale.
Under the MOU, the companies will engineer and design scalable biomass-to-SAF facilities using indigenous agricultural residues as feedstock. The collaboration combines Varhad’s existing operational gasification platform, already producing syngas and biochar from agricultural residues, with Velocys’ proven Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology, enabling a direct and efficient pathway from biomass to SAF. The initial projects will establish a scalable hub-and-spoke model for SAF production in India.
The ultimate objective is to produce Make-In-India SAF that can compete with conventional pathways on cost while achieving strong lifecycle carbon performance.
Prasad Dahapute, Founder and Managing Director of Varhad, said:
With an operating gasification platform already in place, we are moving quickly.
”Working with Velocys allows us to translate that capability into fuel production through a proven technology that is aligned with favorable market economics,”
Sachin Joshi, Chief Commercial Officer at Velocys, said:
This collaboration is about combining two commercially proven technologies in a market where we can streamline biomass-to-fuels production with a technically robust, commercially competitive offering,
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Varhad Capital signs MoU with Velocys to develop Make-In-India, cost‑competitive biomass-to-SAF projects, source
