The Mexican Association of Natural Gas (AMGN) met with various experts to encourage the use of natural gas vehicles in the country, since currently about 2,6 thousand people use this transport fuel despite having 33 million cars circulating in Mexico. “We need to work with authorities to expand the use of CNG in our country and support the sector and carriers,” said AMGN president Tania Ortiz Mena.

During a press conference, Enrique Enrich, CEO of Scania and representative of natural gas bus assemblers, also commented that these vehicles manage to combine two very important things: economy and emissions control.

“Regarding worldwide economy, it is the one with the lowest operating cost because a natural gas vehicle is 25% more expensive in the initial cost, but this is recovered very fast with the fuel cost difference we have seen, which is about 50%. On the subject of emissions, we can ensure that trucks and buses that run on CNG do not produce greenhouse gases that affect the environment,” said the businessman.

Luis Felipe Echavarria, chairman of the Association’s NGV Board, said that there are 18 states in Mexico that have this technology. “Today we have 12 years of experience in our country; there are 19 natural gas stations or distribution plants in nine states in Mexico, with more than 8,000 vehicles converted”, he said.

Meanwhile, Rolando Madrazo, representing Gazo’s Conversion Centers, said that for the CNG conversions the systems have all international certifications and standards with maximum security, and are approved and registered properly in the corresponding secretariats of Environment.

Zivac Rubio, representative of Liquefied Natural Gas, said that these new technologies adapted to fleets have a return on investment two years maximum, which depends on the amount of kilometers and generates savings of 380,000 pesos (local currency) a year.