The new facility, located on the premises of Mattheeuws Transport in Veurne, is supplied by a tanker truck from Zeebrugge’s LNG terminal and will service the haulage company’s 26 LNG-powered trucks. “We have developed a unique partnership with Fluxys, Eni, Volvo Trucks and Romac Fuels to promote LNG as a valid alternative to bio-petroleum. I’m convinced that LNG is the future,” said Eric Mattheeuws, CEO of Mattheeuws Transport.
For Fluxys the project is a pilot both in terms of engineering, technology, permitting and working out the economics of an LNG station. The experience gained during construction and the feedback from Eric Mattheeuws as operator of the filling station is to yield recommendations and best practices to be used when building more stations. “By joining forces with this transporter we have lowered the threshold for other freight companies to make the switch to LNG,” commented Walter Peeraer, CEO of Fluxys.
As the initiative by Mattheeuws Transport and Fluxys not only includes the construction of an LNG filling station but also aims at producing a business case for the industry as well as lessons to be learnt for public authorities, it will most likely receive co-financing by the European Commission. The project was selected for EU funding by an independent group of experts under the priority ‘Measures to promote innovation and new technologies for transport infrastructure’ of the TEN-T Annual Call 2013.
“The EC supports LNG as an alternative fuel for trucks. The new LNG station will most likely be co-financed for 50% of the costs and is a project selected under the 2013 Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) calls for proposals. We are particularly pleased with this initiative, which forms part of a broader project and will provide interesting lessons both for policy makers and the industry alike,” added Stefano Campagnolo, Project Manager Transport at the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) of the European Commission.
Source: Fluxys
