LAHORE - Masses are again taking interest in the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) due to rising petroleum prices, which is good for consumers, environment and the people involved in gas business.

As the prices of petrol continue to climb, the price of CNG will start falling soon, benefitting the consumers, said Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha, central chairman of the All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA). He said that CNG dealers had felt the heat of falling oil prices since long as many motorists shifted to petrol but now the situation was taking a turn in favour of the environmentally-friendly fuel.

Car owners with CNG kits enjoyed over 50 percent savings when petrol was traded above Rs100 per litre from April 2012 onwards. The highest petrol price was recorded in October 2013 when it was sold at Rs113.24 per litre. Since November 2014, petrol prices started to drop from Rs100 per litre, he said.

Paracha said “we will soon introduce a new technology in the country which will be more efficient, significantly increasing mileage and reducing overall cost for motorists. He said that new lightweight gas was being introduced that would benefit the CNG consumers. “We are sure that this solution will enable us to improve efficiency of the whole system,” he said.

The CNG sector is gaining momentum, as many people have already started preferring gas to petrol and that is evident from long queues of vehicles at CNG stations in Punjab, he added.

Ghiyas Paracha said that import of CNG kits had been banned for years and it resulted in a demand-supply gap, adding that estimates suggested that two million cars could be converted into CNG in the country.