Westport Seeks to Push Carriers to Adopt Natural Gas Engines

This story appears in the July 8 print edition of Transport Topics.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — In a number of small buildings scattered around the outskirts of this burgeoning city, a young public company is working away at helping lead the trucking industry to natural gas.

“Over-the-road trucking is moving to liquefied natural gas,” said Matthew Campbell, marketing manager for Westport Innovations Inc., and his company intends to be ready as more fleets call.

In one building, workers transform traditional heavy-duty diesel engines into the only 15-liter power plants currently available to North American fleets that choose natural gas.

A team of mechanics takes 76 minutes to strip the fuel-delivery systems that come on every one of the engines the company buys from Cummins Inc. Westport sells the virtually new parts to companies that are involved in the after-market niche.

While the engines are stock assembly-line models, Cummins paints them orange before shipping them to Vancouver in order to distinguish them from the company’s trademark red models.

It then takes the mechanics another 76 minutes to install the natural-gas delivery system that Westport designs and builds.

When they’re finished, the engine — technically the Westport 15L — is set to run on what Westport calls its high-pressure, direct-injection system.

But Westport Innovations, founded in 1995, is at the center of the move to make natural gas a major fuel alternative in trucking for more than its own engine and in more forms than just LNG.

The company is a partner in the Cummins Westport joint venture, which supplies virtually every other heavy- and medium-duty natural-gas engine available for purchase by fleets in North America.

It was only this year that a true, heavy-duty natural-gas engine other than Westport’s 15L has become available — the Cummins Westport ISX 12G, a 12-liter, spark-ignited model. Up to now, a few fleets have used a 9-liter Cummins Westport medium-duty engine to power Class 8 trucks.

 Westport’s HPDI system involves using a small amount of diesel injected into the cylinders to permit the engines to function like a traditional diesel model, through compression ignition of the fuel. After the initial splash of diesel, the engine burns liquefied natural gas.

Westport officials say their engine produces 21% to 27% fewer greenhouse gases than a diesel engine, while delivering performance that is at least equal to the diesel. And, officials say, 95% of the parts in their engine are compatible with traditional diesels, so they’re no mystery to maintenance staffers.

To be sure, Westport’s sales are minuscule. But there has been a leap in interest in natural gas as a trucking fuel, as prices have fallen thanks to the wave of hydraulic fracturing throughout the United States.

Natural-gas systems can add as much as $90,000 to the cost of a tractor, thanks in part to the steep prices for fuel tanks to contain LNG. Westport’s Campbell said large natural-gas tanks — which have to either contain LNG at extremely low temperatures or compressed natural gas at great pressures — cost around $30,000 each, and the 15L itself carries a premium of about the same amount.

However, since LNG is so much cheaper than diesel, Campbell said Westport estimates that fleets that run their vehicles 125,000 miles a year can recoup the extra investment in a little more than two years of operation if the price spread between the fuels is $1.50 a gallon equivalent.

In recent months, that spread has been consistently more than $1.50.

Campbell said Westport has sold about 1,000 15Ls in trucks sold by Kenworth and Peterbilt since 2006. It is currently producing four or five engines a day in the small Vancouver facility.

Brad Edgelow, senior director of North American sales for Westport, said acquisition is only the second-biggest deterrent for fleets.

“Fuel availability is the No. 1 issue” that causes fleets to not buy natural-gas trucks, he said.

Several companies are building natural-gas fuel stations around the country, and some large fleets are adding their own facilities.

 Westport eventually will have competition in big-bore  natural-gas engines, since Cummins has announced it will introduce a 15-liter model in 2017, which also will utilize Cummins Westport spark-ignited technology.

Westport also is working with Volvo on a 13-liter, LNG compression engine that the Swedish truck maker said it intends to introduce into its North American models next year.

Volvo recently announced it will offer engines that run on dimethyl ether, a form of natural gas that can be produced from waste products such as animal manure or fat as well as from natural gas. Sister company Mack made a similar announcement several weeks later. 

Meanwhile, Westport has recently entered the truck natural-gas tank business and says it has better technology than what is available from competitors.

Westport also provides bi-fuel systems that automaker Ford offers as an option on its super-duty truck line, and during June bought a subsidiary of Clean Energy Fuels Corp. that helps provide bi-fuel systems.

Clean Energy will receive $25 million in Westport stock in return for the subsidiary, BAF Technologies. The companies also agreed to a $5 million joint marketing campaign designed to foster natural-gas truck sales as part of the sale.

The BAF deal expands Westport’s Ford product line from Ford’s super-duty trucks to its vans and taxis.

Westport also has begun producing LNG tenders for railroad diesel locomotives.