Publication: Weekend Nation
Paper Section And Page: 3
Paper Date: Fri, Jan 19, 2001
Byline: by Terry Ally
BY yearend, Barbadians could be driving cars which are powered by fuel which is cleaner, cheaper, and environmentally friendlier than gasoline.
It is natural gas, which is "greener" than unleaded petrol and about 20 per cent cheaper.
"We have been looking at the feasibility of this for some time and we have had some proposals from the private sector and the Barbados National Oil Company are looking at this and I think this year we would hope to see the setting up of some filling stations and some fleets to do the conversion to natural gas or LPG," said Mark Clarke, general manager of the National Petroleum Corporation.
He said the time for this move was ripe because the number of vehicles had increased exponentially and the level of air pollution must therefore be rising at a high rate.
One setback, he said, was the high cost of converting a vehicle to natural gas. A recent study showed that payback time would be about four years without incentives, so according to Clarke, proposals had been made to the Ministry of Finance for incentives to taxi drivers and fleet owners to make upfront capital cost of conversion feasible.
However, he said, that even with the present cost, it would still be economically feasible for companies which operate large fleets of vehicles to convert to natural gas since the monthly operation cost would be about 20 per cent cheaper than that of traditional fuel.
In addition, some car companies, like Honda and Toyota, were already manufacturing vehicles with the ability to use both natural gas and regular petrol.
Clarke said that with this new move, householders need not worry because there were sufficient natural gas reserves to last the next two decades and with new offshore fields set to come into operation within the next five years, there would be additional opportunities to introduce more natural gas-fired equipment and appliances.