Romania’s energy firm OMV Petrom is teaming up with a unit of Italy’s Vulcangas to build liquefied and compressed natural gas filling stations in Romania.
According to a statement by OMV Petrom, the firm and Vulcangas Romania entered into a partnership and plan to launch the first station in 2025 at a Petrom filling station located in Chitila Sat, Ilfov County.
This station will supply light and heavy transportation vehicles.
Also, other future filling stations will be installed depending on the evolution of LNG and CNG demand in Romania, it said.
Radu Caprau, member of the OMV Petrom executive board, said that through this partnership, “we continue to diversify our mobility offer for medium and long-distance freight transport, by supporting the growth of the LNG and CNG market.”
“Natural gas can be a viable option for the transition to cleaner transportation,” Caprau said.
The company in which Austria’s OMV holds a 51.2 percent stake claims LNG/CNG freight transportation generates about 15 percent less CO2 emissions, 50 percent less SOx emissions and almost no heavy particulate emissions.
A truck fueled by LNG/CNG can benefit from an autonomy of up to 1,600 kilometers, it said.
Data by Gmobility, previously known as NGVA Europe, shows that Romania currently has no LNG stations for vehicles, Germany has 185 LNG filing stations, while Italy has 146 such stations.
Europe in total hosts 709 LNG stations for trucks.
European network of LNG fueling stations for vehicles recently reached 700 stations.