• 29 Dec 2014

December 18, 2014. Tata Motors is betting big on the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to fuel its buses and trucks. According to AK Jindal, Head of Engineering (Commercial Vehicles), the company has carried out a preliminary evaluation exercise with Indian Oil Corporation. LNG terminals are already part of the Gujarat landscape with Kochi and Mangalore scheduled to follow suit. For industrial consumers, LNG stations are being set up along the west coast and extending this to include dispensing stations would be quite viable. “If a truck has to travel from Gujarat to Mangalore and further to Kochi, filling gas will not be a problem,” Jindal says. LNG tanks can give a range of around 800 kilometres and from Tata Motors’s point of view, it boils down to incorporating these (tanks) in its vehicles. With CNG already available as a fuel option in the fleet, there is no change needed in the vehicle or engine. It is only the tank that matters to facilitate LNG application. Tata Motors is already in the process of getting necessary approvals for using the fuel in commercial vehicles. “Once this is done, we can get vehicles on the road,” Jindal says. There are potential customers such as state transport undertakings which are reportedly keen to use LNG in buses. Over the next 3-4 years, there is a strong possibility of Bharat Petroleum Corporation getting LNG from its Mozambique field which has rich reserves. Once infrastructure in the form of pipelines and terminals is in place, the fuel could be supplied to other parts of India. Source: GNV Magazine