Nat Gas for Trucks Grows as Alternative to Diesel

This story appears in the May 5 print edition of Transport Topics.

Natural gas continues to grow steadily as an alternative transportation fuel as more trucking companies adopt use of compressed and liquefied natural gas.

CNG, LNG and other unconventional fuels will be in the spotlight at this week’s Alternative Clean Transportation Expo in Long Beach, California.

Many trucking and natural-gas fuel providers pegged recent growth to the popularity of Cummins Westport’s 12-liter natural-gas engine, the ISX12 G, available since August.

Volvo Trucks is developing a 13-liter nat-gas engine and “plans to begin taking orders for the D13-LNG engine in late 2014, with initial availability in 2015,” spokesman Brandon Borgna said.

“We continue to see breakthroughs in both technology and increased purchases and orders for natural-gas vehicles across the industry,” said Glen Kedzie, vice president and environmental counsel for American Trucking Associations. “We’re confident that natural gas is not just a passing fad.”

UPS Inc. has made some of the industry’s biggest plans for LNG in terms of trucks and its fueling stations.

It announced plans last year to build 15 LNG fueling stations and is on track to have them completed by the end of this year, said Mike Britt, UPS’ director of maintenance and engineering.

“We get new [LNG] trucks in just about every day,” said Britt, who is scheduled to speak at ACT Expo.

“We’re taking delivery of Cummins Westports [engines] and Macks [trucks].”

UPS has about 220 LNG tractors in place, and is “on track to have 1,000 LNG trucks running by the end of the year,” Britt told Transport Topics.

While noting that CNG is generally used in lower-mileage routes — “with engines, it doesn’t matter which fuel is used. The only reason we’re involved in LNG is to get the [longer mileage] range,” he said.

FedEx Corp. has two LNG tractors.

One big hurdle for fleets thinking about natural-gas trucks is the high cost of vehicles, which can add upward of $50,000 to a tractor’s price.

In October, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. teamed with GE Capital Finance to offer financing for the cost differential, provided fleets buy 75% of their natural gas from Clean Energy over the course of the lease.

Clean Energy CEO Andrew Littlefair said last week his company has “made some good progress with GE. . . . We’ve spent a few months getting organized and training their team,” and expects to announce fleet signings soon.

The company sees demand for CNG and LNG, both of which it provides, Littlefair told TT.

“It’s going to be both,” he said. “Some of our markets are exclusively CNG,” even as it continues developing its network of LNG stations for over-the-road trucks.

Of 96 stations opened, 14 are exclusively LNG, and 11 offer CNG and LNG.

A host of other fuel providers including Blu LNG, Love’s Travel Stops, Shell Oil Co. and Trillium CNG will be presenting, and in some cases, giving tours of their latest fueling projects at ACT Expo.

Meanwhile, an Ohio trucking company recently announced plans to convert about half of its 250-truck fleet to natural gas as a way to cut fuel expenses and cut emissions.

J Rayl Transport Inc., an Akron-based truckload carrier, has purchased 76 CNG tractors and is looking to order about 50 more this year if the trucks perform as expected, CEO Jeremy Rayl said .

The trucks, powered by the ISX12 G and outfitted with 165 diesel-gallon-equivalent tank capacity, run in regional and long-haul applications. “We’ve been able to successfully travel from our Akron terminal to Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma,” Rayl told TT.

Because the trucks have run only  about 30,000 miles, Rayl said it’s too early to determine how much his fleet is saving by switching to the less-expensive fuel.

“The engines and the trucks are running well,” Rayl said. “We’re still waiting to see what the fuel efficiency will be, but we hope to recoup our investment in 3½ years.”

J Rayl has partnered with U.S. Oil to provide CNG, and U.S. Oil also is installing a point-of-sale system that it is opening to the public as one of its Gain Clean Fuel stations.

One transportation industry analyst said that alternative fuels have plenty of room to mature in the trucking industry.

“Alternative fuels are the future for [many] different reasons,” said Lee Klaskow, an analyst with Bloomberg L.P.

“Natural gas has a place within the over-the-road trucking market — it kind of has to be an ‘If you build it, they will come,’ with truck stops making the investments in fueling stations,” he said.

Klaskow also said that shippers are a key part in the equation. “It has to start at the top — there has to be a partnership between shippers and for-hire carriers to go down that route together.”

Staff Reporter Seth Clevenger contributed to this story.