November 5, 2014 Vol. 11 No. 23

Two weeks ago, I had no doubt that the headline for that issue of this newsletter was fitting — ‘Natural Gas: Slowing Down?’ That was the key takeaway after day one of the Natural Gas Vehicles Canada Conference and Exhibition. Things don’t look rosy for gas, at least not for over-the-road trucking in Canada.

And then a couple of days later came the big announcement that Quebec’s C.A.T. — Canadian American Transportation, a truckload carrier — will pioneer running a cross-border long-haul operation with natural gas vehicles (NGVs). The company signed a full-service lease agreement with Ryder System for 100 compressed natural gas (CNG) Freightliner Cascadia tractors.

Yes, CNG, which isn’t supposed to make sense in a long-haul operation. Or is it? More on that in a minute.

While conference speakers and attendees were generally upbeat about the potential of natural gas to save on fleet operating costs and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, they also agreed that the demise of the 15-liter Westport liquefied natural gas (LNG) engine option is largely to blame for the slowing NG take-up rate. Capable as it is, the only available OTR engine — the 11.9-liter ISX12 G from Cummins Westport — is just too small for anything above an 80,000-lb gross weight, which rules out a lot of routine Canadian hauling.

“We’re not going to get to the Canadian weights that you want with this engine,” said Gordon Exel, president at Cummins Westport. There’s just no flexibility in that 80,000-lb limit, he added.

To clarify, Westport Innovations is a Vancouver-based company that, until recently, built its own compression-ignition engines on a 15-liter Cummins ISX foundation, fuelled only by LNG. Cummins Westport is a separate entity, a 50/50 joint venture between the two companies that offers two spark-ignited engines — the 11.9-liter ISX12 G and the 8.9-liter ISL G. Jointly developed, they’re built and sold by Cummins, and either CNG or LNG can be used in them.

In fact the entire North American heavy-duty truck market is adopting natural gas at a slower rate than predicted, according to a recent report from ACT Research.

NGV sales have grown at about the same rate as the truck market as a whole in 2014 — they’re expected to total 11,000 units, which is up 27% from 2013. That sounds pretty good, but NG truck sales were once expected to leap ahead, percentage-wise.

“Expectations have fallen from our initial analysis,” said Ken Vieth, general manager at ACT. “Factors contributing to the shifting return-on-investment results include the price of diesel and meaningful improvements in overall fuel economy.”

Among the remaining barriers for the natural-gas market are the price gap between natural-gas and diesel vehicles and early-stage infrastructure build-out.

“The chicken and egg issue of infrastructure is being solved, albeit slowly, but the price of natural-gas-powered equipment still needs to be addressed, and this won’t be solved overnight,” Vieth said. “That’s why we call it an evolution and not a revolution.”

BUT THE RYDER/C.A.T. DEAL is pretty positive news. The family-operated carrier will be running its CNG Freightliners between Montreal and Laredo, Texas, and will thus be limited to 80,000 lb GVW. That means the 72-in. raised-roof sleeper tractors will be fine with the 400-hp Cummins Westport ISX12 G, which will be mated to Eaton Ultrashift Plus automated-manual transmissions. Special CNG tanks will be mounted low behind the cab. 

The 100 Freightliners will replace the same number of diesel-fuelled tractors in the fleet.

This is Ryder’s first natural gas lease deal in Canada and its largest single such lease to date. The leasing outfit says it has more than 27 million miles of natural gas operating experience, with NGVs deployed in several states. It operates two liquefied-to-compressed natural gas (LCNG) fuel stations at its maintenance facilities in Orange and Fontana, Calif., as well as an LNG fuel station at its Fulton, Ga. maintenance facility.

C.A.T., by the way, sat 25th in the Today’s Trucking Top 100 For Hire Fleets ranking this year, with 350 power units and 1350 trailers as of March. As well as its main terminal in Couteau-du-Lac, QC, it has seven others in Quebec, Ontario, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. It’s been a Smartway-certified carrier since 2007, and an early convert to automated-manual transmissions and trailer skirts.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM SUGGESTS that liquefied natural gas (LNG) is the fuel of choice for over-the-road NGVs mostly because of the longer range they offer compared to CNG, among other reasons. The latter is most often seen in return-to-base trucks like garbage packers.

It’s not yet clear why C.A.T. president Daniel Goyette chose CNG, but with either form of the fuel, the challenge is not so much in the hardware but the infrastructure. Details of how C.A.T. will meet that challenge have not emerged so far, though Goyette says he’s finalizing a deal to implement filling stations where he needs them along the Montreal/Laredo corridor. The trucks have not yet been delivered.

Ryder will provide maintenance for the 100 CNG vehicles from its Montreal service facility, which is being upgraded for compliance with natural gas standards.

Early in 2013 Goyette said his company would no longer buy tractors at all, but lease them. He opted for a short 30-month Ryder lease program so as to remain flexible in the fuel he used. At the time he said he was bullish on natural gas (See ‘C.A.T.’s New Leases On Life’, Today’s Trucking, April 2013, p. 27.)

“I’m pretty convinced,” he said then, “that natural gas is the way of the future. If I buy trucks and keep them five years, I may be depriving myself of the competitive advantage that will be offered when the natural gas supply network is in place.”

GOYETTE’S FUEL CHOICE plays into a continuing debate about which kind of natural gas is best suited to long-haul trucking, CNG or LNG. Presently available engines don’t care which one they’re fed; the differences lie elsewhere.

LNG offers the most energy density by a good margin, but still only about 60% of that offered by the equivalent volume of diesel. Given weight and space restrictions on the typical OTR truck, that means it’s impractical to have enough CNG or LNG tank capacity on board to provide the same range as diesel. Packing more energy, however, LNG wins the range battle because more of it can be stored and carried in the same space. At least twice as much, in fact, but that still tops out at a driving distance of 500 km or so.

Another factor is the speed of fueling. LNG tanks can be filled as fast as diesel because the fuel is liquid but CNG, always gaseous, demands a slow fill that takes 6-8 hours. There are ‘fast fill’ options that take only half an hour or so, but usually only half the tank can be filled in that time because of heat and pressure build-up.

That said, LNG fueling is more complicated and requires that protective gear is worn.

As well, advancements in CNG fill technology are speeding up the process, and new tank technology is shaving weight off such that the playing field is becoming more level. Using nanoparticle-enhanced resin technology, for example, 3M has created CNG tanks that are 10 to 20% lighter with 10 to 20% greater capacity, all at a lower cost than standard vessels, the company says. The 3M technology is also claimed to produce safer and more durable tanks than conventional types.

PERHAPS THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE between the two forms of natural gas lies in the infrastructure. In simple terms, CNG can be drawn from the vast network of existing pipelines whereas LNG must be created at a liquefaction plant and then trucked to the delivery site. Add that fact into the mix and LNG can become rather expensive in comparison.

It’s hard to find an accurate, current fix on the exact number of fueling stations across the continent, but CNG seems to have its competition beaten by a factor of about seven to one.

“LNG in heavy duty trucks and buses has always seemed likely to be a niche fuel,” says Navigant Research. “While growth is anticipated, CNG is likely to see faster growth and remain a much larger market. The main reason comes down to costs. The cost of LNG trucks is significantly higher than that of CNG trucks and the fuel costs more as well, so the incremental cost payback period is at least double that of the CNG trucks.”

I can’t resolve this question here, and I don’t have the digital space to dig much deeper into it. It’s complicated, to understate the case, and even giant natural gas outfits like Clean Energy are hedging their bets. While that company is building liquefaction plants and thinks LNG is the way to go for long-haul trucking, it also has its fingers very deep in the CNG sector.

That conundrum makes the C.A.T. lease deal with Ryder all the more interesting. As far as I’m aware, nobody else has so far opted for CNG on a cross-border or any other kind of haul as long as this one — 3500 km, or 2175 miles. Fleet owner Daniel Goyette is a clever chap with a well developed sense of adventure, however, so I’ll happily bet that he’s going to have this one well sorted.

And I’ll bet again that, when we finally hear the details of his plan, we’ll see his fueling stops co-ordinated in some way with the hours-of-service rules that govern his drivers. If they’re in the bunk anyway, the length of time required to fill CNG tanks might well become a non-issue.