A company in Nagpur, one of the main cities in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, has set up the nation’s first commercial liquefied natural gas filling station for LNG-powered vehicles.
The LNG station is owned by Shree Baidyanath, an Indian group specializing in medicines, food and cosmetics distribution and making its first foray into the energy sector.
The first Indian LNG station open to the public was inaugurated in Nagpur on July 11.
It is located on the outer ring road towards Dighori and can serve LNG-powered cars, trucks or buses.
At present, four of India’s LNG import terminals have truck-loading stations for contracted customers, but cannot service random members of the public.
“This is the first-ever in the country to operate on a commercial basis,” said Subbarao Vaddadi, director of B-LNG, the fuel division of the Baidyanath group.
Baidyanath’s branching out into LNG was supported by the Indian Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari, who is also a member of parliament in New Dehli for the City for Nagpur.
The Minister was looking for local companies to come forward and set up the LNG station and the Baidyanath group agreed to invest in the project.
“The station is operational and can take 60 vehicles a day for the pump to operate feasibly,” said B-LNG’s Vaddadi.
The Baidyanath group said it also had plans to convert 120 vehicles in Nagpur, including buses and trucks, to run on LNG.
The company said that LNG is being promoted as a cleaner alternative to diesel and the price of the LNG fuel at the Nagpur station would be lower than the current market price to encourage uptake of LNG fuel for transport.
LNG terminal truck-loading is available at India’s biggest terminal, the Dahej facility in the West Coast state of Gujarat and owned by Petronet LNG, as well as Petronet’s Kochi terminal in Kerala and the Hazira and Mundra terminals in the northwest.
LNG as a fuel for transport has been slow to take off in India even in the midst of increasing urban pollution problems.
In June 2021 the state of Kerala started a trial of LNG-powered buses in the first stage of a possible nationwide roll-out.
The LNG and the buses are being supplied to the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) by Kochi LNG terminal owner Petronet.
The KSRTC has also drawn up plans to convert several hundred diesel-fuelled buses to LNG.
