March 21, 2024. The Gazprom Management Committee took note of the information about the prospects for the natural gas vehicles (NGV) fuel market development in the Russian Federation, including in the agro-industrial complex, and about the company’s performance in 2023.
It was noted that, today, a competitive NGV fuel market has already been created in Russia and the required conditions have been provided for converting vehicles and machines to natural gas, the most eco-friendly and cost-efficient fuel.
The company has been systematically participating in the construction of new natural gas refueling infrastructure. As of the beginning of 2024, there are 836 NGV filling stations in Russia, which is 3.5 times more than in 2012. Over a half of the facilities are owned by Gazprom. In 2023, the sales of NGV fuel at Gazprom’s NGV refueling stations accounted for more than 70 per cent of the total volume of natural gas as a vehicle fuel sold in Russia.
Gazprom facilitates the expansion of Russia’s NGV fleet. For example, the company implements a number of marketing programs aimed at converting passenger vehicles to natural gas. For instance, under the People’s Fuel project launched in 2023, the population and companies can convert vehicles to gas free of charge or get a fixed reduced price for EcoGas fuel.
Gazprom is also actively converting its own vehicles to natural gas. As of early 2024, almost 15,000 motor vehicles of the company’s subsidiaries run on methane, which makes 63 per cent of their total number of vehicles suitable for retrofitting.
The company supplies Russian automakers with orders for the manufacture of new models of vehicles that run on compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Taking into account the refueling infrastructure already created and the extensive work on gas infrastructure expansion being carried out by Gazprom in Russian regions, it is agricultural machinery that emerges as a promising direction in which the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel can further develop. Work is already in progress in this regard.
Other promising areas where natural gas can be used as a vehicle fuel include quarry machinery for the mining sector, as well as railway and waterborne transport.
