50 new CNG stations in Belgium

© DATS 24For CNG to succeed, refueling stations must come first. And that's exactly what's happening in Belgium

In mid-January, 2015, DATS 24's 14th station offering CNG was launched in Overijse, Flanders. Present at the launch were Flemish minister for transport Ben Weyts and Jef Colruyt, president of the company Coruyt who owns the DATS 24 brand. During the ceremony it was highlighted that natural gas is the most environmentally friendly fuel on the market, characterised by the lowest footprint of all hydrocarbons.

Vehicles running on methane typically emit by 27% less carbon dioxide (CO₂) and by 95% less particulate matter than their counterparts fueled with petrol and diesel. Minimal emissions of particulate matter is especially important, since this component of vehicle exhaust gasses alone contributes to 75% of all diseases and costs related to exhaust fumes. Furtermore, natural gas combustion fumes are free from the very harmful benzene, and noise emissions from CNG-powered engines are by 75% lower than those from conventionally fueled units.

Economic benefits of using CNG are also remarkable – replacing petrol and diesel with this fuel means substantial savings, even when oil is as cheap as it is today. Also, gradual transition towards natural gas means becoming economically independent from imported oil.

And so now DATS 24 offers CNG at 14 of its existing outlets. The plan is to raise that number to 25 before the end of 2015. Then the network wishes to start retailing compressed natural gas at another 50 stations by the end of the year 2018. Colruyt, DATS 24's parent company, also owns a network of supermarkets, whose fleets include CNG-powered vehicles (250 passenger cars, 20 delivery vans and a truck). Altogether, there are now 1700 CNG-powered vehicles (NGVs) in Belgium. Two years ago, in early 2013, there were as few as 200.