On 4 October, during the 8th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum, the International Gas Vehicle Associations Conference took place, Measures to Support the NGV Market.

By 2020, major Russian cities are obliged to switch half the public and municipal transport to gas. This approach will facilitate significant improvement in the ecologic situation and considerably cut costs. For the reform to come to life, the state is ready to promote this process, following the practices that their more experienced fellow-states have already used. “NGV fuel is being dynamically introduced in many countries. China has switched 6 mln vehicles to NGV fuel. In Italy, 1.2 mln vehicles use gas, although this is the country that doesn’t have its own gas at all,” explained Viktor Zubkov, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Gazprom, Russia’s Special Presidential Representative for Cooperation with the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. According to him, Gazprom is mounting gas filling stations capable of serving 500 to 600 cars a day. Today, there are 340 gas filling stations in Russia, and 280 of them belong to Gazprom.

For now, installation of such stations is unprofitable, as they are only 27% loaded, but the speaker believes that the industry is going to take a sharp turn, and these filling stations will become much-in-demand. “One unit of gas costs 13 rubles, whereas petroleum and diesel fuels are 45 rubles and more. We’ve switched 40% of our vehicle park to NGV fuel and saved over 2 bln rubles,” says Zubkov. He emphasized that switching to NGV fuel significantly contributes into environmental improvement, too. According to researchers, motor vehicles produce about 44% of emissions, and in major cities this figure can reach 90%. On the contrary, NGV fuel will help reduce emissions by 59 thousand tons. Moreover, Zubkov told of their plans to start pilot projects of NGV fuel market development in Rostov-on-Don and Belgorod. “We’re going to make a roadmap showing the detailed plan of the project implementation. Installing such filling stations may be costly, it may take 50 to 200 mln rubles to do it, but we know how to cut the production costs,” Zubkov concluded.

Kirill Molodsev, Deputy Minister of Energy in the Russian Federation, emphasizes that he has no trouble in switching the vehicles to NGV fuel, “We’ve made the main thing – we disengaged diesel and gas costs, thus, preventing gas prices increase.” Moreover, Molodsev said he was amazed that no companies yet appeared to make money out of gas cylinders and mobile filling modules making and so on. “This is an absolutely free niche for small- and middle-scale business,” thinks Molodsev.

Zhao Yongqi, CEO of Kunlun Energy, presented the Chinese experience with LNG, liquefied natural gas. Today, China facilitates a total production cycle of the LNG industry, the receiving terminal, the plant, fuel transportation means and cryogen-based filling stations, and many more. By the end of 2017, 18 LNG receiving terminals with capacity of 60.67 bln t/y were commissioned into operation in China. Natural gas vehicles are also popular in the Land of the Rising Sun – now, they are over 6 mln. Every year, the amount of gas supplied vehicles increases by 20 to 30% thanks to the austere environmental policy and reduced gas prices. Today, this country is creating its own system for fuel transportation, although their transportation means are limited: they use over 8,000 tank-trucks, their total capacity coming to 55.6 m3.  The Chinese government is developing laws, regulations and standards in regard to LNG use.