PRC: Natural Gas for Land and River Transportation Project

Air pollution continues to be a major environmental challenge in the PRC. Less than 1% of the 500 main cities in the PRC meet the air quality standards recommended by the World Health Organization. Although industrial emissions have stabilized in the past few years, a rapid increase in vehicular traffic volumes has created a new threat in the form of vehicle and vessel emissions. This factor, as well as the technological developments inspired by successful cases in Europe, has created renewed interest in the application of both compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the transport sector, since heavily polluting fuels such as diesel can be replaced with natural gas, which produces no particulate matter, 25% less carbon dioxide, less than one-third as much nitrogen oxides, and 99% less sulfur dioxide than conventional fuel.CNG is suitable for short-distance inner-city transportation and, therefore, can be used by cars, taxis, and buses. LNG has superior energy density and is more appropriate for long-distance transportation, such as long-distance trucking. Furthermore, there is untapped potential for further greening transportation using LNG for inland waterway transport (IWT). The PRC has the world's largest IWT network, both in terms of length and freight volume. The proposed project is designed to facilitate the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel by building CNG and LNG refueling stations along long-distance land transportation corridors and IWT networks in the PRC that cross municipal and provincial boundaries. With the proposed facility, CGH plans to build and operate subprojects of 600 CNG and 200 LNG filling stations for land-based vehicle use and another 20 LNG filling stations for IWT vessel use during 2015-2018.