CNG History in Iran and the World

The history of Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) technology is old and inconsistent. The environmental conditions and fuel consumption issues were focal point in the recent years and natural gas has gained a new position in the arena as a substitute for fossil fuels. 

In 1930, the U. S. was the first country to use NGVs. Subsequently, NGV was prevalent in the Europe during the world war, and the interest to use NGV raised in the early 1950s.

In 1982, during the Canada Energy Exhibition held in Vancouver, July 1986, the International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles (IANGV) was formed by a body of 35 NGV supporters. In the early 1990s, NGV supporters set up guidelines for international commercialization of NGV.

Regional and national NGV associations such as Japan NGV Association (1991), Europe Natural Gas Vehicle Association (1994), Asia Pacific Natural Gas Vehicles Association (2002) and so many similar associations in England, France, Australia, and Russia were formed.

As it can be seen in the following diagram, European plans to use CNG are formed in a way it is expected that more than 27 million vehicles will be using CNG as their main fuel by 2020.

Today there are over 5 million NGVs on the road worldwide. Argentina (1650000 NGVs), Pakistan (1550000 NGVs), and Brazil (1425000 NGVs) have the largest number of NGVs in the world.

CNG is a fuel choice for drivers in Argentine, Italy, Brazil, Pakistan, India,
U. S. , China, Venezuela, New Zealand, Egypt, Canada, Colombia and Germany.

The samples of advanced NGVs are shown in the following pictures.

The CNG History in I. R. Iran:

CNG projects were started in 1977 with the conversion of 1200 vehicles in Shiraz as a pilot project and two refueling stations were constructed there.

After a pause, the CNG program started in Mashhad in 1985 and over 1200 NGVs and 22 refueling stations were existed there.

Subsequently, in 1990, The United Bus Company of Tehran & suburbs researched on conversion of buses in urban trips that were operated in 1994.  Today, this company has 2400 CNG buses and 7 refueling stations.

In 2001, Iranian Fuel Conservation Organization (IFCO), a subsidiary of   Iranian Ministry of Petroleum, was established and a comprehensive project for creating infrastructure and developing CNG in I. R. Iran was started by IFCO aiming to manage fuel consumption, decrease air pollution, contract with CNG vehicles manufacturing companies and private sector to construct CNG stations, and promote natural gas vehicles.  

Private sector participation has led to constructing more than 160 conversion workshops in countrywide.

In 2000, 3 stations, Oil Ministry Parking, Shahid Rajaee Taxi Management, Iran Khodro Engine Research were constructed with the operating capacity of 19000 cubic meters per hour and in 2001 construction of 180 stations has started. Today about 400 CNG stations have been constructed in over 170 cities, 22 stations among them were constructed by private sector.

The stipulation of No 11, article of country's budget (2004) and No 13, article of country's budget (2005-2006) caused the CNG national Project to run perfectly fine In 2007,  the national CNG project continued by National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC).

Iran is the fourth country in the world with over 700000 NGVs.