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FINALLY
the government’s Natural Gas Vehicle Program for Public
Transport (NGVPPT) will materialize with the scheduled
commercial operation of 11 compressed natural gas (CNG)
buses on Monday.
Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and the Department of
Energy will kick off the NGVPPT with their Libreng Sakay
(Free Ride) project.
Mario C.
Marasigan, DOE Director for Energy Utilization and
Management Bureau said that for two weeks now, some of
the buses have been running within the Batangas City
area.
“But we
will jumpstart the program of Libreng Sakay with the 11
buses on June 24,” said Marasigan.
Technical issues have delayed the full development of
CNG as a public-transport fuel, a change widely seen as
boosting savings on imported fuels like gasoline and
diesel.
Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. remains the only company
with a CNG fuel station, which it launched in October
last year. It is located at the northbound Biñan service
station of the South Luzon Expressway.
“The CNG
buses have yet to run,” Nicky M. Hidalgo Jr., KL CNGBUS
Transport Corp. vice president for public relations, had
told reporters a month ago. He added Shell has not been
supplying the fuel due to technical problems. Apparently
that problem is now resolved.
Hidalgo
said they have 12 CNG-fired bus units under the program
and that they have already invested P5 million per bus.
“Originally, we have been accredited to bring in 40 CNG-fired
bus units,” said Hidalgo, implying that the supply delay
had also delayed full use of their company’s quota.
In
October President Arroyo said Shell’s daughter station
will soon help lessen the country’s dependence on
imported oil, as well as carbon emissions in accordance
with the Kyoto Protocol.
Plans
were to sell CNG at P14.52 a cubic meter to bus
companies.
The CNG-powered
buses will ply the Laguna-Cubao/Lawton and
Batangas-Cubao/Lawton routes under the seven-year pilot
program.
The
clean, indigenous gas is extracted from the Malampaya
well, 80 kilometers northwest offshore Palawan,
compressed at a mother station in Batangas and
transported to the Biñan daughter station.
“The
government has encouraged this project, not because of
its economic implications, but also out of its
commitment to reduce air pollution,” according to Edgar
O. Chua, country chairman of Shell Group of Companies in
the
Philippines.
Shell is
committed to push for the use of natural gas. “Shell has
found success developing CNG in other parts of the world
and it is our intention to do the same in the country,”
Chua added.
Supposedly operational by September 2005, Shell CNG
operations were deferred to June this year due to
“technical problems” in the mother station located in
Tabangao, Bantangas, and the daughter station in Biñan.
The CNG
bus program provides incentives to participants,
including income-tax holiday for pioneering projects
qualifying; zero rate of duty on imported equipment,
facilities, parts and components; preferential and
exclusive franchises from LTFRB on newly-opened routes;
accelerated issuance of environment compliance
certificates; and affordable and commercially tenable
financial packages from GFIs, among others.
The DOE
has accredited seven bus operators that committed to
acquire 185 CNG buses by yeared: HM Transport Inc., 80
units; RRCG Transport System Inc., 20 units; KL CNG Bus
Transport Corp., 40 units; Pascual Liner Inc., 20 units;
Greenstar Express, 10 units; Biñan Bus line, five units;
and CNG Vehicles Corp., 10 units. |
