Natural Gas May Help Clear Asian Traffic Pollution

BANGKOK -- Catch a bus or a taxi in Asia and chances are increasing that it will be fuelled by natural gas.

Across the region from New Delhi to Seoul, compressed natural gas (CNG) is slowly finding a niche as a vehicle fuel as governments strive to cut air pollution from gasoline and diesel on some of the most traffic-clogged streets in the world.

A recent United Nations report said a three-kilometer (two- mile) thick cloud of pollution shrouding Southern Asia was changing rainfall patterns and putting millions of people at risk from flooding and drought, with dire implications for economic growth and health. "You need to cover your nose and mouth with a handkerchief while walking in Bangkok and many major Asian cities," said Kevin Park, president of NGVI Inc, a Florida-based supplier of natural gas vehicle systems, Reuters reported.

"We need cleaner fuel for a cleaner air," he told Reuters at an industry conference in Bangkok this week.

Apart from a better environment, Asian nations are also trying to curb their rising reliance on imported crude oil, which is mainly source from the Middle East.

Although regional crude oil reserves are small, natural gas is abundant from Pakistan and Bangladesh to Southeast Asia and down to Australia.

India has taken a leading role in promoting natural gas on its roads. In New Delhi, CNG is being used by some 57,000 vehicles -- mainly taxis, buses and automobile.

In Malaysia, in and around the capital, Kuala Lumpur, there are close to 5,000 natural gas-fuelled vehicles on the road.

Malaysian state oil firm Petronas launched a natural gas vehicle in 1998. It has exported its Enviro 2000 cars to Southeast Asian neighbors and signed feasibility study deals with national oil companies in the Philippines and Thailand.

???? On a Roll Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has made the use of gas in the transport sector a top priority and has a target to increase gas vehicles to 300,000 in 2015 from 100 in 2005.

"The Philippines started quite late but we are moving at a breakneck speed," said Reman Chua, manager of First Gas Holdings Corp., a major natural gas supplier in the Philippines.

Singapore in April rolled its first gas-powered bus onto the road with 11 more planned before the end of the year.

Sembcorp Gas, a unit of Sembcorp Industries Ltd., hopes the program will expand to about 2,000 vehicles in the next three years.

Kevin Park, from the Florida-based supplier of natural gas systems, said 3,000 of South Korea's 50,000 buses were likely to be using CNG by the end of 2002 and the number is expected to leap to 20,000 by 2007.

In Thailand, state oil firm PTT kicked off a campaign two years ago, offering free installation of a $1,000 natural gas conversion kit for taxi cabs in Bangkok to steer them away from liquefied petroleum gas.

PTT reckons it has installed conversion kits in about 1,000 taxis so far and expects 10,000 natural gas vehicles on the streets of Thailand by 2007.

Park said although in general progress was being made, more government intervention and industry cooperation were needed.

"The NGV business is like a soccer game. You need 11 players to play concertedly to boost the industry -- from government agencies to gas firms to auto makers," Park said.

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