CNG Buses

[RedHorse]

talking of buses, it's a relief to my eye everytime I meet these new HINO buses... they're back with new design... though I still have to view the interior, but from the outside they're way way better than china buses imported during cory/fidel days...

I used to ride on HINO made buses used by philtranco during my college days

[ghosthunter]

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakin...Es-CNG-project

[SIZE="4"]Bus firms threaten to pull out of DOE’s CNG project [/SIZE]

By Amy R. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:42:00 02/21/2010

MANILA, Philippines -- Operators of compressed natural gas-run buses have threatened to pull out of the Department of Energy's Natural Gas Vehicle Program for Public Transport (NGVPPT) over the government’s alleged failure to address the issues plaguing the program.

According to Roberto Torres, president of the RRCG Transport System Co. Inc., they have been unable to operate their CNG buses due to the inability of the "daughter" station of the Pilipinas Shell at Mamplasan to operate and provide fuel to them.

Torres said bus operators, which have already invested heavily for the project, have been losing some P200 million. He said his company has been suffering losses of about P1 million a month.

“Needless to say, the very promising pilot project of the NGVPPT has bogged down. We see our investment not only in the 45 CNG buses, but also in its technical support in terms of manpower training and supplier, as well as infrastructure-being wasted away and slowly sinking in the quagmire of Shell and DOE's making," he said.

The NGVPPT is a seven-year pilot program that would peg the price of CNG at P14.52 a liter, less than half the price of diesel, for participating bus operators. It targets to push forward the natural gas industry.

Currently, the mother station is in Tabangao, Batangas while the "daughter" station is in Biñan, Laguna. As such, the CNG-fed buses included under the program are those plying the Manila/Cubao to Laguna/Batangas route. Both stations are operated by the Shell group of companies in the Philippines.

According to Torres, they first learned that Shell's CNG daughter station in Mamplasan had not been operating due to the inability to transport the natural gas from the mother station in Tabangao, after a bridge collapsed in 2009.

But they also learned, said Torres that the Mamplasan station had not been operating even before the bridge collapsed.

As such the bus operators have asked the President to intervene in solving their concerns.

Different bus companies have submitted a letter to Malacañang, dated Jan. 18, 2010 that was signed by Torres, HM Transport Corp. president Crispin Rea; KL CNG Transport Corp. president Charlie Lim; and BBL Trans System Inc.'s Avelino Souza.

The bus operators claimed that "the DOE has failed to compel Pilipinas Shell to shape up and deliver its commitment to supply the CNG requirements of the NGVPPT. Instead it has acted more like the PR arm of Shell than the lead government agency in charge of ensuring the success of the NGVPPT."

In the same letter, they said that the DOE “has even failed to come up with alternative suppliers of CNG, seemingly ignoring and burying in bureaucratic red tape all our proposals."

The groups said they agreed to participate in the pilot program with a view that this would be a "most realistic and completely doable pilot project initiated by the government for the use of alternative but very clean fuel-CNG, since it can be sourced from indigenous and huge commercial deposits of natural gas, with infrastructure already in place to make full use of it."

"We committed to import 200 CNG buses from DOE-approved suppliers abroad, with the initial 45 units arriving in 2005 and 2006. DOE assured us that Pilipinas Shell, which the government had commissioned to supply the initial CNG mother/daughter stations would have such stations on-line by 2006. Unfortunately, the initial 45 buses that we imported had to deteriorate for two up to three years before we could even begin to use them, because Shell's single mother/daughter station in Malampaya and Mamplasan became operational only by mid-2008," they said.

They stressed that "since then the operation of this mother/daughter station has been plagued with technical problems and failures almost every month leading to erratic hit and miss operations of the CNG buses."

Torres, meanwhile, warned that they would have to soon convert their CNG-run buses to diesel if the government would remain mum on the real score of the NGVPPT.

[SIZE="2"]Another prime example why the Filipino is CANNED.[/SIZE]

[badkuk]

Talk about being left to twist in the wind. Sila na ang nagmagandang loob, sila pa ngayon ang napaso.

[ghosthunter]

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/i...10/february/22

[SIZE="4"]CNG-powered buses screech to a stop for lack of gas[/SIZE]

by Alena Mae S. Flores

THE entire fleet of passenger buses powered by compressed natural gas is now wasting away, unable to run because of a crippling lack of fuel.

The government had persuaded four transport companies to acquire an initial fleet of 45 buses to run on natural gas drilled from the Malampaya field off Palawan, and in a campaign to wean away the industry from smoke-belching diesel buses.

Instead, the buses have been grounded since October, with the four companies now racking up P200 million in lost income, not to mention the cost of debt servicing and maintaining the fleet, said RRCG president Roberto Torres, who has 10 CNG buses in his fleet.

The CNG supplier, Pilipinas Shell, claims it could not deliver the gas until the government repairs the Bridge of Hope in Gulod, Batangas, which was destroyed by typhoon Pepeng in October.

Strangely, Pilipinas Shell, which is fighting the government over a P7.3-billion tax claim, had been able to continuously deliver tankers filled with liquefied petroleum gas, which is heavier than CNG, using another route, said Torres.

Besides RRCG, the government had persuaded HM Transport Corp., KL CNG Transport Corp. and BBL Trans System Inc. to borrow money from the Development Bank of the Philippines to jumpstart the transport industry’s clean-air program.

From the first five buses imported from China in 2005, the government program has targeted 2,000 buses, which cost around P5 million each, to ply Metro Manila’s major routes by 2010.

Instead of clean air and cheaper CNG fuel, RRCG was now saddled with a P1-million monthly loss on the CNG buses, Torres said.

Pilipinas Shell has maintained that the alternative Taysan Bridge must be reinforced and the low electric cables cleared before the oil company could re-route its tankers for the Mamplasan delivery.

CNG buses were hailed as part of the government’s contingency measures to wean bus companies away from imported fossil fuels when world crude prices hit over $100 a barrel in 2008. The bus operators at the time offered free rides to promote the program and the benefits of CNG.

A by-product of natural gas, CNG is environmentally cleaner and produces minimal air particles. It also helps reduce the Philippines’ dependence on imported oil and costs around 40 percent lower than diesel.