T&T's first CNG maxi taxi is ex­pect­ed to make its de­but by Au­gust 31. It is one of sev­er­al de­vel­op­ments ex­pect­ed over the next few weeks as NGC CNG, a sub­sidiary of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T Lim­it­ed, con­tin­ues ef­forts to pro­mote use of CNG as a fu­el across the coun­try.

NGC CNG pres­i­dent Cur­tis Mo­hammed, who re­cent­ly gave an up­date on the com­pa­ny's pro­gramme dur­ing a CNG Kit Con­ver­sion Con­sul­ta­tion said "the CNG busi­ness was cre­at­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $850 mil­lion in eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, with a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of that sum com­ing from con­ver­sion ac­tiv­i­ty."

With 35 PTSC bus­es al­ready us­ing CNG and with grow­ing sup­port from the As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxis of T&T (AMTTT), both sig­nif­i­cant users of diesel fu­el, Mo­hammed said the pub­lic trans­porta­tion in­dus­try is be­com­ing a green in­dus­try, com­mit­ted to re­duc­ing car­bon emis­sions, im­prov­ing air qual­i­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment.

In an­oth­er sig­nif­i­canr de­vel­op­ment, Di­a­mond Mo­tors, a mem­ber of the Ansa McAL Group of Com­pa­nies, will launch the first OEM CNG heavy com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles in T&T, the Freight­lin­er Truck, on Au­gust 26.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies, in­clud­ing the En­er­gy Min­istry), Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA), T&T Fire Ser­vices (TTFS) and Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre (NESC) made pre­sen­ta­tions at the CNG Kit Con­ver­sion Con­sul­ta­tion, giv­ing guid­ance on re­quire­ments for be­com­ing li­censed CNG con­vert­ers. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards and Town and Coun­try Plan­ning were in at­ten­dance.

NGC CNG opened its first new CNG Re­fu­elling Sup­ply Point at St. Christo­pher's Ser­vice Sta­tion (SC­SS), Wright­son Road, Port of Spain on June 29. Since its open­ing, the ser­vice sta­tion's has seen a steady sales in­crease.

Scott Fab­res, sta­tion op­er­a­tor at St Christo­pher's, ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with NGC CNG in pro­mot­ing CNG as a more eco­nom­ic and clean­er al­ter­na­tive to con­ven­tion­al liq­uid fu­els. He said he "an­tic­i­pates a grow­ing de­mand for CNG ve­hi­cles and in­crease in sales from both busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als who ap­pre­ci­ate the en­vi­ron­men­tal and fu­el ef­fi­cien­cy ben­e­fits of CNG."

Fol­low­ing the open­ing of St. Christo­pher's, works have been on­go­ing at an­oth­er new CNG sup­ply point, Ram­co's Or­ange Grove Ser­vice Sta­tion, Tacarigua, as well as on restora­tion of CNG sup­ply at the NPMC Car­rousel Ser­vice Sta­tion at Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road, San Fer­nan­do. Both are ex­pect­ed to be opened be­fore the end of Sep­tem­ber. NGC CNG's equip­ment has been in­stalled at both sites

Site vis­its have been made and works are sched­uled to be­gin by the end of Sep­tem­ber on re­fur­bish­ment of the Mt. Lam­bert Ser­vice Sta­tion and three new sup­ply points at NP O'Meara, Unipet San­ta Flo­ra and NP Star­lite.