Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

There are now calls for ad­di­tion­al CNG fill­ing sta­tions af­ter mo­torists spent more than an hour wait­ing to fill their tanks at one ser­vice sta­tion in, San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day.

Through­out the day, there was a long line of ve­hi­cles along Hil­da Laz­zari Ter­race as mo­torists wait­ed their turn at the CNG fill­ing sta­tion at Rush­worth Street.

The oth­er CNG sup­ply at NP Carousel, in Co­coyea Vil­lage, near the round­about in Mon Re­pos, was un­avail­able as NP is con­duct­ing re­me­di­al work at the lo­ca­tion.

Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do taxi dri­ver Clyde Bernard said the CNG fill­ing sta­tion at Point Fortin was shut down years ago, and apart from San Fer­nan­do, the next clos­est sta­tion sup­ply­ing CNG is in Cou­va. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he said, CNG fu­el was on­ly avail­able at the ser­vice sta­tion in Mon Re­pos, which has four CNG pumps.

Stephanie Charles, of Rousil­lac, called for ad­di­tion­al fill­ing sta­tions through­out the coun­try.

When con­tact­ed, the NGC CNG Com­pa­ny Ltd stat­ed that they were in­formed ear­li­er this year by the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NPMC) that re­me­di­al civ­il works had to be done at the NP Carousel sta­tion in Mon Re­pos to en­sure the con­tin­ued re­li­able and safe dis­pens­ing of CNG to the pub­lic.

The works re­quired a stop to the sale of CNG at the lo­ca­tion.

“These works were start­ed by NPMC on Wednes­day, Ju­ly 5 and NGC CNG was in­formed that the ex­pect­ed com­ple­tion date would be Mon­day, Ju­ly 10, 2023. Once giv­en all clear by NPMC, NGC CNG will restart the CNG equip­ment at the lo­ca­tion,” the com­pa­ny said.

The com­pa­ny ex­plained that the de­com­mis­sion­ing and re­moval of the old CNG equip­ment in Point Fortin was nec­es­sary for the in­stal­la­tion of new com­pres­sion, stor­age, and dis­pens­ing equip­ment. The up­grade in­cludes the ad­di­tion of a sec­ond dis­penser to cater to cus­tomers in the area.

The com­pa­ny al­so not­ed that the process of ob­tain­ing reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals ex­pe­ri­enced de­lays due to chal­lenges re­lat­ed to the place­ment of the new equip­ment and space lim­i­ta­tions at the sta­tion.

NGC CNG as­sured that it was ac­tive­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with the reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies to find a sat­is­fac­to­ry res­o­lu­tion that would en­able the nec­es­sary ap­provals to be grant­ed.