Now open: Louisiana Clean Fuels members Sparq Natural Gas and Entergy, along with Lavigne Oil Co., have completed site upgrades and facility improvements at an existing compressed natural gas fueling station in Baton Rouge. As NGT News reports, Sparq announced last November it was spearheading the upgrade and expansion of the CNG site, which is owned by Lavigne Oil Co. Sparq says the newly commissioned project, located at 8968 S. Choctaw Drive, marks the first CNG station publicly accessible to Class 8 heavy-duty vehicles in South Louisiana. Read the full story.
Supply lines secured: Yuhuang Chemical Inc. says it has secured a 20-year agreement with Williams Partners to have natural gas transported via Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipeline to the Chinese firm’s $1.85 billion methanol manufacturing plant that’s under development in St. James Parish. Natural gas is a key feedstock in the production of methanol. Construction on the first of three planned phases to complete the plant is expected to begin the fourth quarter of this year. YCI and Louisiana officials announced the plant in July last year.
How low will it go? Retail gasoline prices tumbled to the lowest level in more than three months in the Lundberg Survey as crude oil dropped for a sixth straight week. U.S. drivers paid an average $2.71 per gallon of regular gasoline at pumps across the nation in the two weeks ended Aug. 7, according to Lundberg Survey Inc. As Bloomberg reports, prices fell 10.77 cents a gallon in the survey, which is based on information obtained at about 2,500 filling stations by the Camarillo, California-based company. Gasoline cost about 81 cents a gallon less than a year ago.
