Five CNG stations not enough,say taxi drivers

Time to pump up the volume
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 9 Mar 09;

FOR two weeks, compressed natural gas (CNG) taxi driver, Mr Ng Buck Swee, had to wait at least an hour to refuel at the Mandai CNG pump station, which was having problems with its pumps.

The 50-year-old told Today last week: “Only four out of the 16 pumps are working ... It has been like that since the Chinese New Year week but since last week, the pumps have been spoilt almost everyday.”

When contacted on Thursday, Smart Energy, which runs the Mandai Link CNG station, told Today it had “maintenance issues” with its pumps but the station is now fully operational.

Over the fortnight, according to Mr Ng, as many as 40 CNG taxis were queuing at the pump station during the shift-change hours. Every hour spent waiting at the pump station meant a loss of $20 to $30 in income, the cabbie added.

Smart Energy’s managing director William Aw said the pump station had relied on a secondary compressor as a back-up. “However, due to the lower output capacity of the secondary compressor, it can only handle four dispensers simultaneously,” he said.

The company has purchased another compressor system to complement the current setup, which is expected to be in place later this month, he said.

Such woes are not the first encountered by drivers of CNG vehicles.

In January last year, a pump breakdown at the CNG station on Jurong Island — the only one that was operational then — also lasted for two weeks, hitting taxi drivers who were already struggling with low takings due to a fare hike.

As of this January, there were 1,009 CNG taxis and some 2,500 CNG vehicles in Singapore. But there are only three CNG pump stations in Mandai Link, Jalan Buroh and Jurong Island.

Two new stations will open this year: One in Serangoon North under Smart Energy later this month and the other along Old Toh Tuck Road under Union Energy in August.

While the new stations should help ease woes, taxi drivers like Mr Goh Teow Wah still have some concerns: “We need more stations ... there should be one pump station in each area. For instance, if I’m at Changi Airport and my car has no gas, how to travel to Mandai to pump?

“There are a lot of CNG cars now on the road. And more people will drive CNG cars if there are more pump stations.”

Mr Tan Soon Chye, general manager of Prime Taxis, suggested that pump stations be set up in a central area like Bukit Merah.

“The Government can provide some incentive for used cars to be converted to CNG. Even allowing used private cars to be converted to CNG and used as taxis will accelerate the CNG programme here,” he said. Prime owns 450 CNG taxis.