Total Outlines Europe CNG Strategy
Total said April 6 it inaugurated its first French natural gas filling station the previous day at Nantes in western France.
Another 15 stations will be opened this year, followed by a further ten a year, it said. The aim is to create a network of 110 outlets under the Total or AS24 brands serving primarily heavy trucks. Total affiliate AS24 has specialised in marketing fuel to heavy trucks for nearly 30 years.
“Natural gas could become the fuel of the future for road transportation,” said Momar Nguer, Total’s president of marketing and services (pictured below).
Photo credit: Total
The French major already has a network of 450 natural gas fuelling stations worldwide, supplying compressed natural gas (CNG) in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Egypt, Pakistan and now in France. It opened its LNG filling station in 2015 in Belgium near the port of Antwerp. CNG is ideal for cars, buses and garbage trucks while LNG is better suited to long-haul trucks.
Total said it plans to open more than 200 natural gas fuelling stations, including 110 in France, and it hopes to build on its existing conventional network across Europe of more than 9,000 petrol and diesel filling stations.
It’s not alone: France's Engie said a year ago it will invest some €100mn between now and 2020 on new filling stations on Europe's roads to refuel trucks with LNG and CNG – with an ambition of 30 CNG stations and up to 70 LNG stations across Europe by 2020.
In March 2016, there were an estimated 3,000 CNG and 75 LNG filling stations in Europe, said Engie.
Many of Europe's CNG stations are in Italy – which has more gas-fuelled vehicles than any European country – but Germany also has many CNG stations, developed by gas marketers there including Gazprom.
Italian gas grid Snam and refiner Api agreed in December 2016 to develop CNG filling stations across Italy, with up to 150 new CNG stations to be developed within Api Group’s IP commercial network that already has 3,000 conventional filling stations.
Mark Smedley