LATIN America and the Caribbean have lost ground to East countries in the growth of natural gas vehicles (NGV) due to targeted government policy in the East, stated large Colombian gas conglomerate Promigas.

Ten years ago Argentina and Brazil were world leaders, now it is Pakistan and Iran, said Aquiles Mercado Gonzalez, Promigas’ vice-president of finance, at the Marriot Hotel in Bogota Colombia on Tuesday.

Mercado Gonzalez was speaking at the launch of the company’s 11th annual Natural Gas Sector Report 2009, which compiles worldwide gas data.

“Pakistan and Iran have gained ground on Latin America. When you look at these countries to see what happened you see a striking effort on government on programmes to create incentives for conservation and to promote the infrastructure of natural gas in vehicles and the construction of stations,” he said about this gas, which is the same natural gas piped to homes for cooking and heating. “So unlike in our country in these two cases you have a thriving sector… and it leads to conversion of more vehicles worldwide.”

The number of natural gas service stations jumped highest in Pakistan and Iran over the decade to 2009 up 67 per cent and 69 per cent respectively, which supported Mercado Gonzalez’s argument. The global natural gas vehicle population has reached 11.35 million units in 2009 up 18 per cent year on year with Pakistan topping the list of nations with 2.3 million, Argentina with 1.8 million, Iran with some 1.7 million, Brazil with 1.6 million and India at 935,000 according to the Promigas report, which utilised the latest data from the International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles. Colombia ranks eighth with some 302,370 with Caribbean countries including Trinidad & Tobago ranked at 36 with 3,500 vehicles, Cuba at 70 with 45 vehicles and Dominica Republic ranked 83 with one. Jamaica was not listed.

Promigas is an energy holding company comprised of 12 natural gas transmission/distribution and telecommunications companies with operations in Colombia, Peru and Panama. Forty per cent of the natural gas transported by Promigas travels through the company’s own pipeline network, which is more than 2,200 kilometres long.