Thailand promotes gas vehicles

Thailand promotes gas vehicles

BANGKOK: Thailand's national petroleum company pledged on
Friday to invest five billion baht (US$128 million) to transform
Bangkok's 9,000 public buses into natural gas vehicles (NGVs),
media reports said.

"Turning the city's buses to use natural gas for vehicles
(NGV), instead of diesel, will help the nation save a lot of
money for oil imports and reduce the country's reliance on
imported oil. NGV is also environmentally friendly," Chitrapong
Kwangsuksathit, senior executive vice president of PTT Public
Company Limited, told the Thai News agency.

State-owned PTT, which has a monopoly over sales of indigenous
natural gas, will invest the money to convert the engines of all
buses owned by the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) and its
concessionaires into natural gas-based engines.

"The bus operators, both BMTA and its concessionaires, will
gradually pay back the engine conversion cost to PTT whenever
they fill up with NGV at PTT's stations." -- DPA