Development of natural gas as a vehicular fuel in Pakistan: Issues and prospects

Technical overview of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a transportation fuel

“…But this is mainly because of low quality of CNG system material e.g. CNG cylinder, CNG design & installation, maintenance system etc., driver's errors and lack of strict government CNG vehicle safety regulations in Pakistan [26]. Similarly, in 2002, investigators [124,125] matched the fire-safety risks associated with diesel and CNG school busses and found that total fire-fatality risk from CNG bus was 2.5 times higher than the diesel buses.…”

“…Most of the CNG vehicles operated today are retrofitted from the gasoline engine [25]. In Pakistan, the 2nd largest consumer of CNG almost the entire NGV fleet comes under bi-fuel vehicle category [26].…”

“…Furthermore is less vulnerable to price fluctuations and its resources are more evenly distributed over the earth as compared to oil [118]. The price advantage of natural gas over diesel and gasoline has often been considered as the most crucial parameter to attract consumer to switch their vehicle from conventional fuel to CNG [26,74,107,108,120]. Table 3 compares the retail fuel prices in US $ for the fiscal year 2011-2012 in top 15 CNG user countries.…”

“…in Pakistan) or to ban the diesel usage in city buses (e.g. in India) [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

“…For instance in Pakistan, 2nd largest consumer of CNG, several CNG vehicles related accident has been observed for the last few years [26]. But this is mainly because of low quality of CNG system material e.g.…”