Release

Press Release
18-Dec-2008

LATIN AMERICAN NGV ASSOCIATION INDICATES NEW REPRESENTATIVES

The Executive Council of the Latin American NGV Association, is formed by Directors from Argentine, Brazil, Peru and Colômbia. To meet the objective to support the Council in covering the progress and trends of other countries in the region, it has been indicated as ALGNV representatives for Chile and Venezuela, Gerardo Muñoz and Pedro Mellado, respectively. The new representatives have an extensive experience and knowledge of the NGV industry, with strong participation in all aspects of their development and progress, since the first days of the conceptual implementation in the region.

Chile has shown an important progress in the initial utilization of natural gas for vehicles in their territory. Later on the country has faced a severe interruption of gas supplying, being forced to interrupt the program in some important regions. Today, natural gas is available for vehicles in the South of the country, covering the needs of some two cities: Punta Arenas and Concepción. In the initial phase, Chile has rapidly came up to a NGV fleet of 8500 vehicles and 14 fueling stations. The NGV program is planned to be reinitiated in September 2009, when Chile will start counting with LNG supplied from imported sources and stored in a terminal, expected to be completed by that time.

In the case of Venezuela, an initial NGV program has been also strongly developed, when 50,000 vehicles were converted to natural gas. The program was also interrupted due to the lack of Government incentives. Today, it is estimated there are still some 10% of that fleet still operating with natural gas and some 140 fueling stations ready prepared to re-start supplying natural gas at any time. For this new stage, the program is denominated “Autogas”, and is managed by PDVSA, the state-owned oil and gas company in that country. Today, there are some 72 conversion shops capable to convert vehicles to natural gas and it is planned to produce some additional 10,000 new conversions until the end of December this year. In 2009, a new law requires that all local automakers or automobile importers, will commercialize at least 30% of their production, or importation, as NGVs to the Venezuelan market. It is estimated this will represent some 90,000 to 100,000 new NGVs. In the same year it is expected the existing and new conversion shops will provide some 100,000 other NGVs, from Government or taxi fleets.

The Latin American continent, has today some 3.6 million natural gas vehicles, representing aproximately 50% of the global fleet. Today, all over the world there are some 8 million vehicles running with natural gas, and it is estimated this fleet will come up to 65 millions by year 2020.

Insight Engenharia de Comunicação (55 21) 2509-5399
Patrizia ziza@insightnet.com.br