Waste Management opens CNG station near Houston

Natural gas companies and fuel retailers aren’t the only ones pushing compressed natural gas as an alternative vehicle fuel.

Waste Management, a Houston-based refuse disposal and recycling company, on Friday opened a CNG fueling station in Conroe to serve its growing fleet of natural gas-powered trucks.

Waste Management currently operates five CNG-powered collection vehicles in the communities north of Houston, but the company expects to roll out an additional 35 in the area by the end of 2012, it announced Friday.

The public fueling station will refuel Waste Management’s local fleet and sell CNG to commercial fleets. It will be open to retail consumers soon.

“Since natural gas-powered collection trucks run cleaner and quieter, we’ve made the commitment to use more in our local operations and support them and our community by opening a public CNG station,” said Don Smith, area vice president for Waste Management’s Texas and Oklahoma region. “We are dedicated to providing our customers with outstanding service while doing business in the most sustainable manner possible.”

 Waste Management currently has 28 CNG fueling stations, with plans to have 50 operating by the end of the year.

The company also is adding more CNG trucks to its fleet. It already includes more than 1,400 CNG trucks.

“In 2012, natural gas vehicles will represent 80 percent of our annual new truck purchases and continue for the next five years,” said Eric Woods, Waste Management’s vice president of fleet and logistics.

Company spokeswoman Lisa Doughty told The Oklahoman that Waste Management does not have any CNG trucks in Oklahoma at this point.

“While we know this is the direction we are heading, I do not have a time frame for when this might happen,” she said.

A number of Oklahoma municipalities use CNG for trash trucks and other city vehicles, including  Norman and Edmond.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is converting its truck fleet to CNG. The company has opened fueling stations at several of its field offices to the public, while teaming with OnCue Express and Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores to open more CNG stations in Oklahoma.

Houston-based oil and gas producer Apache Corp. also has opened several CNG stations, including one in Tulsa.

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