Thursday, July 24, 2014

Natural Gas Trucks - has the time come?

Correspondingly, it's true. Many of the truck operators in the US are shifting to trucks fueled by Natural Gas on the strength of a new engine technology that cuts the cost of shifting from diesel fuel. So much so, industry forecasters including ourselves believe that 5% of all heavy duty trucks sold in 2014 will run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), up from 1% in 2013. Indeed, many of the trucking companies are already testing trucks running on Compressed Natural Gas and Liquefied Natural Gas. What's more, these trucks are also friendlier to the environment cutting emissions by about fifty percent than the conventional vehicles. According to news reports, UPS is planning to buy 1,000 Natural Gas trucks by 2014, while the delivery arm of retailer Lowe's has announced plans to shift all of its trucks to Natural Gas by 2017.
Why not? Natural Gas hasn't seen better times with complimentary mineral rights laws and new equipment adding to the euphoria. Also, the latest in drilling technologies have helped the gas producers tap hitherto unreachable resources, heralding in a shale revolution of sorts. Echoing this, the abundant Natural Gas has, it has to be said, sent the prices tumbling down. In the process, cheap Natural Gas has reduced dependence on coal and even nuclear power. By 2015, it is expected that the US would export Natural Gas too.
Since Natural Gas is still a regional commodity, unlike oil which trades in the global market, the prices will remain low for a while. Also, the Natural Gas boom could go on for a while because of a new pipeline in North Dakota - The Tioga Lateral Pipeline.

http://www.oil-price.net/en/articles/natural-gas-trucks-has-the-time-come.php 

No comments: