The HCM City administration has asked local transport companies to use Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)-powered buses to save fuel costs and reduce pollution.

The city has authorised the Sai Gon Transportation Mechanical Corporation (SAMCO) and the Sai Gon Bus Joint-Stock Company to set up a pillot programme to use CNG fuel for the city’s bus fleet.

The programme will offer preferential interest rates to transport companies so they can purchase CNG-powered buses.

Duong Hong Thanh, deputy director of HCM City ’s Transport Department, said if the programme was implemented on schedule the city would have 20 CNG buses on the streets by the end of the year.

Experts said CNG fuel for running buses cost about 50 percent less than gasoline or diesel oil. A CNG-powered bus would emit 60 percent less carbon monoxide and 10 percent less nitrogen oxide than the other fuels.

The city’s plan originally called for 50 buses to be operating by the end of the year.
Transport officials said the plan, however, would be delayed because most local transport companies fell short of capital to buy the buses.

Doan Van Nhuom, director-general of the Southern Liquefied Petroleum Gas Joint Stock Company, said next month the company would set up a CNG main station in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province to supply the fuel to its subsidiary stations.

In September, a subsidiary station will be set up at the Sai Gon Bus Company in HCM City. The two stations would be built at a cost of 100 billion VND (5.6 million USD).

Other subsidiary stations will be built in Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces and HCM City to save time and cost for transporting clean fuel to stations.

Nhuom said CNG had been used by the company in large volumes, but had yet by the city’s transport companies.

This fuel has been used effectively in other countries, including the Republic of Korea , China , Thailand and Singapore.
 
By December 2007, there were 754,000 CNG-powered buses in use in the world./.