tive operations when it comes to embrac- ing natural gas, with close to 3,800 vehicles in its fleet of 103,000 equipped to use natural gas. On Aug. 2 the com- pany announced it had achieved its goal of driving 1 billion miles through its alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet, a year earlier than planned, accord- ing to
FleetOwner.com. FleetOwner also reported, that, on
Aug. 9, Ryder System announced its fleet of Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) had reached 100,000 miles, making it the first commercial fleet outsourcing provider to do so. The fourth factor Goreham cites
is also financial. A 50 cents per gallon federal tax incentive for use of CNG or LNG is a motivating factor for the fuels’ use, Goreham said. And yet, it is still newsworthy when
a large carrier is using natural gas, because the mainstream isn’t. It may be cheaper and cleaner, but getting past the high cost of the trucks is only one of the hurdles of adopting natural gas vehicles.
NATURAL GAS INFRASTRUCTURE LACKING Goreham noted that availability
is still a problem. A national fueling infrastructure is not yet a reality, which keeps commercial, long-haul fleets from embracing CNG across the board. Only about 1 to 2 percent of the fuel use in privately owned commercial trucking involves natural gas, Goreham said. “There’s a very limited number of
terminals out there,” Goreham said, especially at private retailers and truck stops.
Mounce agrees. “With a diesel,
where you fuel the vehicle never even comes into the equation. . . But with natural gas, it’s the first, almost first and foremost, thing you try to figure out. Where will we fuel if we use this lane? Often there is a station or two available, but it’s nowhere near the maturity.” In 2013, the Arkansas Legislature
passed the Clean Burning Motor Fuel Act and appropriated $3 million for
ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 4 2016
“IT REALLY IS A TRIBUTE TO HUMAN ENGINEERING … AND THE TRUCKERS ARE ABLE TO BENEFIT FROM THAT RIGHT NOW.”
—STEVE GOREHAM, ENERGY EXPERT, AUTHER AND PUBLIC SPEAKER
incentives to develop and build CNG fueling stations.
CNGPrices.com lists 15 CNG fuel-
ing stations in the state, including the the Krug Energy Station in Searcy that in early August was acquired by alterna- tive motor fuels distributor American Natural Gas, the third such acquisition in the state by ANG. “The Natural State continues to be
an impressive community of alternative fuel-focused businesses and fleet lead- ers,” said ANG CEO Drew West in a statement announcing the sale. Also, with oil prices remaining
low, and projected to stay that way for some time — and better quality diesel fuel — the rush to adapt to natural gas fuels has slowed and some companies have put a hold on plans to adapt more vehicles to natural gas use.
CLEANER OR CHEAPER, NOT BOTH The low fuel prices that the trans-
portation industry is currently enjoy- ing can be attributed, Goreham said, to the hydro-fracturing “revolution.” Hydraulic fracturing is the process of injecting high pressure liquid, sand and chemicals into the ground to break rock apart and release the gas. Offshore drilling requires “some-
thing like” several years and approxi- mately $10 billion to develop a field while, for a comparatively small cost, developers can go “frack” a shale play and have a yield in a few months, Goreham said. The location of the fossil fuel
producing shale fields were known for some time, Goreham said, but until the advent of hydraulic fracturing no
one knew how to get natural gas out of the ground in any great quantity at an affordable cost. Goreham noted that U.S. petro-
leum oil production had fallen from 9.6 million barrels per day in 1970 to 5 million a day by 2008. In the ensuing seven years, almost all of that fall-off was made up by fracking. “It really is a tribute to human
engineering … and the truckers are able to benefit from that right now,” Goreham said. Fracking has also helped make the
cost of diesel fuel cheaper. The cost of a gallon of diesel fuel is down to around $2 from the $3-$4 range of a few years ago.
“There’s roughly a wash right now
in the fuel charge,” Goreham said, com- paring natural gas and diesel prices. He said diesel may have a slight advantage in that a truck can go more miles using diesel, but the cost, cleanliness and growing availability of natural gas is also attractive. But Mounce would say that “a
slight advantage” is an understatement. Diesel is still “absolutely the domi- nant solution” because of the equip- ment expense, added effort of routing through an underdeveloped fueling station network, and even increased maintenance costs. However, he said that price may not be what drives the rise of natural gas. Instead, the industry may eventually have to “wrap our arms around something that costs more . . . because that’s what we want from a cleaner, environmental standpoint.” “I do think this is a great thing for
the industry by the way,” Goreham said. “I think competition is good.” ATR
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