How IGL Limited and New Fortress Energy LNG partnership will jumpstart LNG Vehicle Conversion

Jamaica now has Motor vehicle options....or at least the construction industry does.

On Wednesday IGL Limited, producers of a range of gases in partnership with New Fortress launched a range of vehicle that use LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) as reported in the article “Dr. Wheatley Welcomes Launch of LNG-Fuelled Vehicles by IGL, published April 6, 2018 By Chad Bryan, The Jamaica Information Service.

The vehicles were mainly for Tractor heads to be used by IGL for transporting their loads across the island as shown in this JIS YouTube video:

In fact, this is not much different from what National Continental Bakery has been piloting a project to process Waste Cooking Oil into Bio-Diesel to power their fleet as explained in my blog article entitled “How UWI and YCWJ can Waste Cooking Oil for National Bio-Diesel Production”.

From the looks of it, these are ordinary vehicle that have been retrofitted to burn LNG as a fuel; they are no different in any way from ordinary vehicles.

IGL, New Fortress Energy and Jamaica - Ships, Buses, Fleet Vehicle and then Hybrid Cars

Already plans are afoot for the JUTC (Jamaica Urban Transit Company) to retrofit their Diesel and Gasoline powered Buses to use LNG and CNG.

A full rollout of these JUTC buses is scheduled to occur in December 2018 as explained in my blog article entitled “Why the JUTC is adopting LNG and CNG as PCJ need to emphasize Solar, Wind and Biofuel”

NFE (New Fortress Energy), their partner, will also be doing refuelling for LNG powered ships from its Old Harbour regasification plant in May 2018 as reported in the article “New Fortress Energy To Refuel Ships With LNG From Old Harbour Terminal”, published Friday April 6, 2018 by Steven Jackson, The Jamaica Gleaner.

By 2020, the US will not allow any Diesel powered ships to dock in their ports unless they are LNG. New Fortress Energy has decided to seize the opportunity to set up a LNG refueling station and thus capitalize on the coming trend.

Hopefully, they also be offering this vehicle retrofit to fleet vehicles to large companies and MSME (Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises) as suggested in my Geezam blog article entitled “How IGL plans to sell LNG and CNG Vehicles in Jamaica”.

Many MSME have growing fleets of vehicles and are actively seeking a way of saving on travel and fuel costs as IGL plans to do with their trailer heads. Eventually, IGL Ltd and NFE may push into setting up their own LNG and CNG Gas Stations. It may also jumpstart the local conversion of vehicles to run on LNG and CNG.

This may prompt the Government of Jamaica to lower the importation tariff on Hybrid Vehicles, as predicted in my blog article entitled “Why JUTC going Hybrid indicates removal of 60% import duty on Electric Vehicles”.

Such a move would suggest that there is interest in building infrastructure to support such vehicles. Jamaica benefits in the long term from cleaner air as LNG burns more cleanly and efficiently in motor vehicles and is more energy dense than Gasoline.