Gas Natural Fenosa has opened a new natural gas service station for vehicles and lorries in Santa Perpetua de Mogoda (Barcelona), making Catalonia the autonomous region with the most LNG stations in Spain. The company has invested close to EUR 1 million (USD 1.24 m) in the facilities, which are capable of supplying 32 lorries and 115 light vehicles per day.

This new station brings the total number of public liquefied natural gas (LNG) stations in Catalonia to five, making it the autonomous region of Spain with the highest number of such stations. The facilities, located at the Tranports Mariné installations, will enable any compressed natural gas (CNG) or LNG vehicle to be refuelled.

The public self-service station, with a compressed natural gas (CNG) pump for light vehicles and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) pump for lorries, can be used 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. More than 400 vehicles have refuelled since it was opened in July.
The station is located in Santa Perpetua de Mogoda (Barcelona) for strategic reasons: on the one hand, due to its proximity to the AP-7 motorway and the C-33, and, on the other hand, due to its position close to the El Vallés Integrated Goods Centre (or CEM in Spanish), a logistics platform that serves as a major hub for road haulage supply and distribution.

The European LNG Blue Corridors Project

This facility forms part of the European LNG Blue Corridors Project, an initiative aimed at fostering transport along certain European freight corridors via the use of natural gas in freight transport vehicles. 27 companies and associations from 11 different countries are involved in the initiative.

The project seeks to consolidate industrial knowledge and bring together the stakeholders involved in the development of natural gas vehicles and liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructures with a view to developing the main corridors that criss-cross Europe. Plans are in place to install 14 LNG (or a combination of LNG and CNG) stations, with the station in Santa Perpetua being the only station in Spain forming part of the LNG Blue Corridors Project. There are currently five stations in operation in Europe under this initiative.

Natural gas, an alternative for transport.

There are currently 38 public natural gas stations in Spain, 23 of which belong to GAS NATURAL FENOSA. 18 of these 38 stations supply LNG, a fact that makes Spain the European country with the most LNG stations in operation.

The use of natural gas as a fuel for transport helps improve air quality as it reduces the emission of nitrous oxides by up to 85% and suspended particulate by up to 95% (the main pollutants affecting human health), as well as CO2 emissions (the main greenhouse gas) by up to 20%. Furthermore, natural gas reduces noise pollution because these vehicles produce 50% less noise than diesel engines.

Natural gas is also a highly competitive fuel from an economic point of view when compared with diesel and petrol, given that it can achieve savings of up to 30% compared with the former and 50% compared with the latter.

Source: www.ngvglobal.com/