– to fuel its switch to natural gas drive

IN the coming months, Massy Gas Products, a subsidiary of the Massy family, will be putting systems in place to encourage the use of natural gas as an alternative fuel for vehicles.
The company is currently using its booth at the ‘Green Guyana Expo and International Small Business Summit’ that opened at the National Stadium on Thursday to promote its Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) initiative.

It has on display at the exposition an LPG vehicle it imported a few months ago in the hope of getting the ball rolling with the initiative.

At the end of the exhibition, Massy plans on setting up two “autogas” fuel stations, one at their Mandela Avenue Rubis service station, and the other at their station at Providence, on the East Bank.

“Autogas” comprises a mixture of propane and butane, and is the name of the product that the vehicles will be using.

Persons interested in exploiting this technology can either import an LPG-compatible vehicle, or have the system installed on their regular gasoline-run vehicle.
Massy proposes offering to do the installation for somewhere between $100,000 – $200,000.

“We will be bringing kits that you could convert your car to use this type of gas which is a cheaper gas, less emissions,” explained Massy Gas Products Sales Coordinator, Reinaldo Persaud.

“In terms of safety, you are 100 per cent safe with these types of vehicles. You are not any less safe as compared to a gasoline vehicle; it’s basically the same,” he said.
Persaud says persons should not let the cost of the installation be a dissuading factor if they are considering making the switch, as the money they will save in the long run will be way more than that.

A ONE-OFF EXPENSE
“It might look as a lot,” he said, “but it’s a one-off expense, and in the long-term, you will be saving.

“Gasoline is $230 to $240 per litre; we have cooking gas which is about $180 per litre. When you full your tank up, you will save $3000 to $4000 immediately.
“And some persons might fuel up three to four times a month; that’s $16,000. Within a year, you would already get back that expense, and then you keep saving going forward.”
Moreover, those vehicles that have had the system installed, he said, will have the option of switching between gasoline and natural gas anytime they wish, since the installation kits for the LPG addition will come with its own separate tank.

“One of the great things about this,” Persaud said, “is when we convert your vehicle in Guyana, there will be the option of switching your vehicle from LPG to gasoline.
“You could do it yourself; there would be a switch in the vehicle when we convert yours. You just flip a switch, and automatically you switch to gasoline.”

Persaud used the Dominican Republic as an example of how the technology could work.
“Right now in the Dominican Republic,” he said, “out of about 900,000 vehicles, they have 350,000 vehicles which are using this type of feature.”

Additionally, Massy hopes that the tax exemption on LPG-run vehicles will help to break-in the initiative in the Guyana market. Currently, the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) exempts vehicles designed to accommodate LPG from excise.