Fort Smith is home to Arkansas’ first CNG station (Updated)

Editor’s note: The per gallon of gasoline equivalent price for natural gas is $1.065. The story originally reported $1.39, a price provided by AOG. The company subsequently reported the lower figure.

The first public fueling station in Arkansas for vehicles using compressed natural gas is in Fort Smith, located in the operations center of Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp. (5030 S. S St.)

The natural gas utility received permission in November 2008 from the Arkansas Public Service Commission to sell natural gas for vehicles. Not only did the PSC approve the facility, but commended AOG “for its efforts to facilitate and encourage the use of natural gas as an alternative to fueling vehicles by gasoline and diesel.”

AOG President Mike Callan said the new facility will be open 24 hours, 7 days a week.

“We’re now set up for customers to self-serve via a card reader and have reconfigured the drive to facilitate ease of use. Now all we need are customers,” Callan said.

Callan said AOG personnel will be at the station to monitor the system but not assist in filling vehicles.

“The filling process is comparable in complexity to filling your vehicle at the local gasoline filling station” Callan explained.

AOG has 38 CNG-powered vehicles and has plans to retrofit more.

He said AOG does not yet have a formal ad campaign to push the new services. The company will post on its website info about the station, and will use the media and national CNG location lists to also spread the word.

According to CNG Now, a CNG fueling station is also available at OnCue Express in Arkoma.

The gasoline equivalent cost of compressed natural gas, based on recent natural gas commodity costs, is about $1.065 a gallon. Fuel mileage is equivalent, Callan said.

A CNG user buying 200 gallons of fuel a month will spend $213, while a gasoline vehicle owner with the same amount of fuel will spend — at $3.50 per gallon — $700. Annualized, that comes to a savings of $5,900, and CNG proponents also claim that natural gas motors require less maintenance.

But the savings will be needed to cover the conversion costs. Info from Clean Fuel Conversions shows that many vehicles now have conversion kits, but the costs can range between $9,000 and almost $18,000 for the Lincoln Navigator.

Helping to ease conversion costs is the goal of the “New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions’ (NAT GAS) 2011” sponsored by U.S. Reps. John Sullivan, R-Okla., and Dan Boren, D-Okla. The federal legislation, which has been sought since 2009, includes the following provisions:
• Reinstating and expanding federal tax credits for CNG vehicle purchases and conversions, including bi-fuel vehicles;
• Extending the tax credit for using natural gas as a motor fuel CNG and for installing fueling appliances;
• Expanding the tax credit for installing fueling stations;
• Making Indian Nations eligible for these credits;
• Incentivizing vehicle manufacturers to produce NGVs.

“With gas prices approaching $4 to $5 per gallon, there is no time like the present to incorporate more natural gas vehicles into our transportation portfolio. We encourage the Administration and our colleagues in the House and Senate to join our effort by supporting the NAT GAS Act,” Sullivan and Boren noted in a joint statement issued March 30.