LNG

HAM Group of Spain, the developer of an expanding European LNG filling station network, plans to provide natural gas fuel on the Pan-American Highway spanning South America starting in Peru.

HAM has set up a joint venture with Peruvian company Limagas called Energía de Valor Ambietal (EVA) to begin providing more LNG and compressed natural gas (CNG) for trucks and automobiles in the region.

HAM already has a network of more than 140 LNG, CNG and biomethane service stations in Europe, mostly on the main Spanish transportation routes.

The HAM-Limagas venture plans to provide LNG an and CNG with proposals to open between 10 and 15 natural gas vehicle filling service stations before December 2025.

Supply points

“The first service stations that EVA will open will be located along the Pan-American Highway, a system that links almost all the countries of the American continent with its more than 17,800 kilometres (11,060 miles) of road,” they said.

“These LNG supply points will be located in Mala, Nazca and Arequipa,” they added, referring to major Peruvian cities near the coastal highway.

The Mala LNG service station will be operational first while it is expected that Nasca and Arequipa will be able to begin offering service during the second half of the year.

“With the creation of EVA ( in English, Energy of Environmental Value), HAM Group and Limagas reinforce their presence in Peru, developing an important growth strategy and taking advantage of the possibilities that Peru can become a benchmark in the Latin American vehicle energy field,” the companies stated.

Volvo trucks

HAM already has Peruvian operations. The Spanish company had earlier announced on May 7 2024 that advances had been made in its business in Peru with Volvo Peru delivering the first LNG tractors to HAM Criogénica Peru, the company’s own trucking company.

These were also the first LNG-fuelled trucks Volvo Peru had delivered on the South American continent.

These vehicles acquired by HAM Perú are characterized by having high pressure direct injection (HPDI), which plays an important role in sustainable solutions for the decarbonization of transportation.

HAM, which also has a widespread road haulage business in Spain, also recently expanded its Spanish network with a strategic filling station for transportation fleets travelling from Madrid to Barcelona.

HAM’s new Torre-Serona Lleida LNG mobile service station is located on the A2 Northeast Highway at KP 463.

Spanish build-out

The A2 Northeast highway is one of the main radial highways in Spain with significant trucking traffic fleets passing through Guadalajara, Zaragoza and Lérida.

HAM sets up mobile service stations in the EU designed and manufactured by HAM subsidiary company, Vakuum.

Its European gas stations are open 24/365 and they are monitored remotely while offering the possibility of contacting technical service and with advanced security systems to guarantee the rapid resolution of incidents during refuelling.

HAM recently inaugurated two other facilities in the Tarragona province of eastern Spain as it builds out its chain of filling stations on the A7 stretching from north of Barcelona to Cadiz in southwest Spain.

Grupo HAM of Spain, the LNG and gas fuel infrastructure company, said it partnered with Peruvian firm Limagas to build the first LNG and compressed natural gas station in the South American nation of Peru, an LNG exporting nation.

The station is on one of the main avenues of the city of Cuzco, located in the Peruvian Andes.

The service station currently offers its customers CNG and with its two double dispensers and 80 cubic metres LNG tank will soon be filled with fuel.

“The Cuzco CGN-LNG gas station is the first of three planned natural gas stations in Peru, including a second station in Cuzco and another to be opened at Quillabamba during 2021,” said HAM.

With these new projects, HAM continues to help promote the use of LNG and CNG in South America, where its subsidiary HAM Chile was chosen by local Chilean company Empresas Lipigas to design, construct and commissioning the first LNG fuel in Chile.

HAM’s Peruvian project partner Limagas is an affiliate of Empresas Lipigas.

This station will be sited at fuel facilities of Transportes San Gabriel in Linares, 300 kilometres south of the Chilean capital Santiago.

While Chile is an LNG importer, Peru has been an LNG exporter since 2010 with a plant at Pampa Melchorita comprising two liquefaction Trains and annual output of around 4 million tonnes per annum.

HAM said that the Cuzco station is on Avenida la Cultura, which extends from west to east between the districts of Cuzco, Wnachaq, San Sebastián and San Jerónimo, with significant vehicle traffic.

During the station’s inauguration, the authorities of the Regional Government of Cuzco said that having a natural gas filling station changed the nation’s energy matrix and would help lower fuel costs.

HAM now has a network of 75 LNG and CNG stations. They are located mostly in Europe with 30 in Spain, 16 in Italy, 12 in the Netherlands, nine in Belgium and eight in France, all sited at strategic points for truck transport.