Energy giant's Hume Highway station network seen as a major boost for the alternative commercial vehicle fuel
March 21, 2013
Shell’s Hume Highway liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply plans will be a huge boost to the growth of the commercial transport fuel option, rival supplier BOC says.
BOC General Manger for LNG Alex Dronoff casts Shell’s move as another step down the path his firm has blazed and highlights the greater profile for the fuel that he believes the Shell investment will bring.
“It can only provide greater access to and awareness of this important alternative to diesel for transport operators from a commercial, economic and environmental perspective,” Dronoff says.
The company points out that it has been developing its own LNG refueling network in the eastern states.
It has LNG stations located in Dandenong and Mordialloc in Victoria, with another planned for Altona, in addition to those in Tarcutta, Campbeltown and Wyong/Newcastle in New South Wales and one in Brisbane.
Describing itself as “Australia’s original pioneer in developing the LNG highway concept”, BOC says progress in mainland Australia has come on the back of using Tasmania as a test bed for its highway LNG concept in 2011.
There it launched a micro-LNG plant at Westbury and, along with truck consortium LNGR, a network of refuelling stations around the island state.
It spent about $65 million upgrading its Dandenong air separation unit and LNG facilities in 2010 to meet demand It has also developed a micro-LNG plant near Chinchilla in Queensland.
The process plant will purify natural gas fed into the Roma-Brisbane pipeline by project partner QGC.
“BOC technology will then liquefy the natural gas in a refrigeration process and the resulting LNG will be transported in specially designed vacuum tankers to a network of approximately nine refuelling stations creating an LNG highway from Queensland to Victoria,” the company says.
“The natural gas for the Dandenong plant is sourced from gas transportation and energy infrastructure company APA and converted to liquid form by BOC before being sent back to APA for storage.”
