In an attempt to entice owners of trucking fleets to invest in trucks that run on super chilled natural gas the oil major Royal Dutch Shell is set to invest more than $300 million on creating a series of liquefied natural gas filling stations across the US.
James Burn, Shell's manager of LNG transportation fuels, said that they will develop 200 LNG pumps across 100 Travel Centers of America refuelling stations in such a way as to allow LNG trucks to travel throughout the whole US. Burns said that trucking companies are reluctant to invest in LNG due to the uncertainty of availability of the fuel. "They want to have some comfort that the fuel is available," he said. "We want to be the company that provides that comfort."
Shell also intend to further attract truck fleets to by LNG trucks and use Shells LNG stations by selling long-term contracts which will guarantee that the price of LNG will remain at least 30% lower than diesel for the life-time of the truck. "They can lock in their fuel savings for however long they keep that truck."
Shell first set up a network of LNG fuelling stations in Canada last year, and hope that this new venture in the US will help them to develop the largest LNG supply network in the world, overtaking Clean Energy Fuels who have 300 stations across the US and Canada.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More