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Liquefied Natural
Gas Station to Open in Conn.
Rare East Coast liquefied natural gas station to open in Connecticut
By STEPHEN SINGER AP Business Writer HARTFORD, Conn. December 9, 2010
A new type of gas station is opening in Connecticut, selling liquefied
natural gas to trucks to reduce polluting diesel fumes while
potentially saving money.
Bill Malone, owner and operator of Enviro Express Inc., which
transports waste to landfills and transfer stations, is opening the LNG
station Friday at his company in Bridgeport near busy Interstate 95, a
key East Coast highway that extends from Maine to Florida.
The Bridgeport station also will sell compressed natural gas
that fuels cars. Malone and other promoters of LNG for vehicles say the
fuel stations, established years ago in the West, are only now
beginning to move east, starting with the Connecticut site.
The 53-year-old Malone, who said he has been in the trucking business
since he was 18, was looking to cut pollution from his fleet of
diesel-fuel trucks. He heard of Clean Energy Fuels Corp., which
designs, builds and operates natural gas fueling stations. Malone said
in 2008 he met T. Boone Pickens, a co-founder of the Seal Beach,
Calif., company and Texas oil man, now a booster of alternative
fuels. "He convinced me that to be viable as a trucking firm, I
need to go LNG," Malone said.
Liquefied and compressed natural gas are initially being used for
corporate and government vehicle fleets. Malone plans to initially
convert 18 of his own trucks to LNG, and said he has won a commitment
from AT&T Inc. to buy fuel for 48 trucks.
The station will be open to trucks and cars that can fill up using
credit cards linked to their company fleet accounts.
Promoters of natural gas say LNG and CNG are cleaner than gasoline and
reduce U.S. reliance on imported oil because most natural gas is from
North America.
The cost savings will grow as oil prices continue to climb, with a
difference of between 50 cents and $1 per gallon, said Bruce Russell,
spokesman for Clean Energy Fuels Corp. Large trucks can consume up to
20,000 gallons a year or more, he said.
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Pressurised CNG
Alternative Heavy Duty Transportation
December 9, 2010 GAS Today Australia
The iGas prototype with 4-cylinder fuel-pack in vertical
arrangement. “Potential to reduce imports by over $2 billion per
year at current oil prices” – Paul Whiteman, iGas CEO
Australian company iGas Energy has been toiling over a new solution to
fuelling heavy duty long-distance transportation in Australia, using
compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel storage instead of LNG. The company
has purchased two Western Star prime movers which are fitted with
proven Westport high pressure direct injection (HPDI) gas engines as
part of a collaborative agreement with Westport Innovations. The iGas
system has been successfully fuelling a prototype vehicle towing loaded
single and B-Double trailers at highway speeds. The system has been
patented in Australia, Canada and the European Union with other
international patents applied for.
The CNG is stored in carbon fibre composite cylinders at 350 bar, and
as the gas is used to fuel the engine the iGas process maintains high
pressure in the cylinder by displacing CNG with a liquid, one CNG
cylinder at a time, allowing gas to be injected into the HPDI engine.
A fuel pack comprising four Australian-approved cylinders will give a
truck the same range as a 450 litre tank of diesel using a conventional
engine, according to a GAS Today report.
By way of an interview with Paul Whiteman, iGas Energy Holdings founder
and Chief Executive Officer, the article describes the components and
advantages of the system, including the iGas vision to transform
interstate transportation on the Australian continent while reducing
fuel costs, GHG emissions and particulate matter.
Whiteman told GAS Today, “From our research we believe vehicles in the
initial target market for iGas burn around 4 billion litres of diesel
fuel annually: almost all of this is either imported as refined product
or produced from imported crude oil. Replacement of this imported fuel
with local natural gas has the potential to reduce imports by over $2
billion per year at current oil prices.”
Operational prototype
Bruce Hodgins, Vice President, Market Development for Westport
Innovations Inc. has confirmed his company has an agreement to supply a
limited number of GX engines for use in prototype iGas trucks in
Australia. He added, “Westport is working closely with iGas to
integrate the Westport GX engine with the iGas system to optimise
overall performance, range, and cost with the objective of developing a
CNG fuel storage system to complement the Westport technologies.”
The Westport GX engine was certified to Australian Design Rules (ADR)
80/02 standards in 2007 and has approximately 50 per cent less
particulate matter emissions and 25–29 per cent less greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions relative to an equivalent diesel engine. Westport has
recently certified the GX 15 L engine to ADR 80/03 standards, which
comes into force in January 2011.
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Argentina New Gas Could Cover 50 Years
by Ignacio Pereyra and Jan-Uwe Ronneburger, dpa, Berl|Knight
Ridder/Tribune Business News, December 08, 2010
A shale gas field was found in the southern Argentine province of
Neuquen that is expected to produce natural gas to cover the country's
needs for 50 years, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner
said Tuesday.
"We are very happy because this is going to keep up the country's
growth, an economic model based on growth, accumulation, wealth
generation and income distribution," Fernandez de Kirchner said in
Buenos Aires.
The field was found in the Patagonian town of Loma de la Lata, in
Neuquen, some 1,100 kilometres southwest of Buenos Aires, during
explorations carried out by the Spanish-Argentine firm Repsol-YPF.
The find triples the company's natural gas reserves in Argentina,
according to government estimates, although no details were released as
to the actual size of the gas field.
Shale gas is technically more challenging and more expensive to extract
than other forms of natural gas. However, high prices for natural gas
on the world market make it worthwhile.
Energy is cheaper in Argentina than in global markets, due to state
subsidies and price caps. Partly as a result of that, the country does
relatively little to save energy. Poor building insulation,
particularly in new construction, results in excessive use of air
conditioning and heating.
Natural gas has long been extracted in Loma de la Lata. Indigenous
peoples of the Mapuche community regularly protest over the drilling,
which they say pollutes the air, the soil and underground water
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Range Hedges 80% of
2011 Gas Production
by Jack Z. Smith|Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, December 08,
2010
Range Resources wants to ensure that it has a steady stream of cash to
pay for its 2011 developmental drilling program. The Fort Worth-based
company will focus on the Marcellus Shale natural gas play in
Pennsylvania, where it has a huge leasehold of 1.2 million net acres
and steadily escalating production.
Accordingly, Range already has "hedged" more than 80 percent of its
2011 gas production, Rodney Waller, senior vice president, said
Tuesday. Hedging involves entering into contracts to secure a
guaranteed price for future production.
Range's percentage of hedged gas is the highest among large independent
producers surveyed by the Raymond James & Associates investment
firm. The survey showed that 66 percent of 2011 natural gas production
is unhedged, leaving no protection for producers if gas prices drop.
Marshall Adkins, Raymond James gas analyst, said in a note to clients
that "many companies were reluctant to layer on hedges with gas prices
so low," compared to expectations and much-higher prices in 2008.
Some producers believe that, with gas prices already low, they aren't
likely to drop much more. If prices rise substantially next year, they
want to benefit fully from the higher prices, rather than being locked
into a more modest hedged price. Energy analysts, however, generally
expect continued low prices through at least most of 2011.
Range has locked in a net price of $5.12 per million British thermal
units for its hedged 2011 gas. The net price is the actual hedged price
of $5.56 per million BTU, minus the cost of 44 cents per million BTU
for securing it.
The $5.12 price is well above current gas prices, which have been
between $4 to $4.50 in recent weeks. In futures trading Tuesday on the
New York Mercantile Exchange, gas closed at $4.39, down 9 cents, in
contracts for January delivery.
Range's hedges on gas prices "assure us of a fixed amount of cash flow
per quarter," Waller said. "We're just trying to lock in specific cash
flows, because we have these big development projects we're working on."
Range recently announced that it plans to sell its properties in North
Texas' Barnett Shale, where it produces mainly dry gas. It's putting
its marbles on the Marcellus and other areas where it can get more
revenue from liquids production -- oil and natural gas liquids such as
propane and butane -- which are commanding appreciably more attractive
prices than natural gas.
Marcellus gas also draws premium prices because it is close to the huge
Northeast market.
Range's 2011 focus is also on the Marcellus because its wells there are
showing strong results.
In this year's third quarter, Range brought online 18 horizontal
Marcellus wells in southwestern Pennsylvania. The average initial
seven-day production rate was the equivalent of 8.5 million cubic feet
of natural gas per day. A single well could yield more than 5 billion
cubic feet of gas over its producing lifetime -- more than twice the
expected output of a typical Barnett Shale well.
Range's Marcellus production was the equivalent of 191 million cubic
feet of gas per day as of Sept. 30 and the company expected to hit 200
million to 210 million cubic feet by year's end. The company hopes to
double Marcellus production to 400 million to 420 million cubic feet
per day by the end of 2011.
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