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Last Thursday, the Japanese trade ministry discussed a draft report underlying the importance of fuels diversification, with specific reference to the development of LNG worldwide.
The idea of Ryo Minami, the director of the oil and gas department of the ministry, is to have 10% of the 300,000 long haul trucks to be fuelled by LNG soon, as well as a substantial part of the fleet to use gas in general.
"By diversifying fuel in the distribution sector, we aim to improve our ability to respond in the event of an energy crisis," he said. "If oil supplies are halted, distribution will come to a stop."
Despite the post Fukushima disaster importance of gas, which accounts to 40% of electricity generation now, it has less than 1 percent of the mix in transport, while the OECD average is around 2 percent.
The Japan Gas Association, grouping city gas suppliers, reckons Japan could have 500,000 vehicles running on LNG or CNG by 2030, about 20 percent of all trucks - if necessary infrastructure is built. This will bring 2 million tonnes per annum to the current LNG demand, decreasing also the domestic diesel consumption by 49,000 barrels a day and reducing CO2 emissions by 6.7 million tonnes a year.
However, the government is not offering subsidies for LNG trucks or infrastructure now, except for two LNG and CNG fuelling stations being built by Shell Japan in Tokyo and Osaka next year, but industry officials expect more help to follow.
Reuters also reports a possible committment by the Japanese government on the maritime transport sector as well.
Source: Reuters
