Russia's Putin Cites Environment, Economy In Supporting Natural Gas as Transport Fuel

摘要

Russian President Vladimir Putin has directed the government to create a plan to support the use of natural gas as a transport fuel for automobiles, trains, and ships, citing lower air pollution and costs as key benefits of switching to the fuel. The instruction is meant to spur faster work on the government's recent initiative to create initial regulations on the use of natural gas in transport. Russia has a low level of penetration of natural gas in the transport sector. The Ministry of Energy is studying the incentives that were used in Pakistan, Argentina, Iran, Brazil, and India to create the largest natural gas transport sectors in the world. In Russia, only 100,000 vehicles operate on natural gas out of 17 million such vehicles in the world. Putin said Russia should become a world leader in the use of natural gas as a transport fuel, given its vast reserves of the resource. He called on the government to create regulations and incentives to drive the industry, in an order published June 15.