2 Natural Gas Fueling Stations Due in Lafayette

 

Two public fueling stations for natural gas-powered vehicles are scheduled to open soon in Lafayette, a LEPA member city, in conjunction with an initiative to convert City-Parish vehicles to run on the fuel.

The efforts come in a wider push by government and industry to develop natural gas as an alternative fuel that is touted as cleaner burning and cheaper than gasoline.

Lafayette Consolidated Government is planning to open one fueling station at its public works facility at 1515 E. University Avenue by late summer. The facility will have six dispenser hoses and will be built at a cost of $1.71 million, including a backup generator, says Bill Spivey, a planner with the City-Parish’s Department of Traffic and Transportation.

A second station in Lafayette is under construction by Apache Corporation, a Houston-based oil and gas company that has been at the forefront of promoting natural gas as a vehicle fuel. That fueling station, which will have four dispenser hoses, will open sometime in March at the intersection of E. Verot School Road and S. College Avenue, according to Frank Chapel, Apache’s Director of Natural Gas Transportation Fuels.

Both stations will be open to the general public, but the main market is expected to be the large vehicle fleets maintained by both government agencies and private industry, particularly the oil and gas service companies in and around Lafayette. Lafayette has the greatest concentration of fleet vehicles in Louisiana, says Chapel.

In February, Lafayette Consolidated Government began converting 105 of its light-duty trucks and cars to run on compressed natural gas (CNG), Spivey says. Those vehicles and five city transit buses that run on CNG will be able to use the Apache fueling station once it’s open and can later utilize the city-parish station after it becomes operational.

Apache Corporation has a fleet of 17 pickup trucks in Lafayette that have been converted to operate on CNG, according to Chapel. He says natural gas offers about a 30% to 40% cost savings over regular gasoline.

Apache has also constructed natural-gas fueling stations in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. These stations provide fueling support to its fleet as well as to other companies’ natural gas-powered vehicles.

By year-end 2012, Apache will have 20 CNG fueling stations in operation and will have transformed 350 of its 900-plus U.S. fleet vehicles to natural gas power.