OPERATORS OF compressed natural gas-run buses are urging the Department of Energy to put up alternative facilities and implement other crucial measures that will prevent failure of the Natural Gas Vehicle Program for Public Transport (NGVPPT).

In a letter to Energy Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras last week, these bus operators warned that the ?NGVPPT has bogged down and is in imminent danger of collapsing? should the government fail to immediately ?inject crucial remedial measures.?

The bus operators?which include RRCG Transport System Co., Inc., KL CNG Bus Transport Corp., HM Transport Corp. and BBL Trans System Inc.?are among the participants of the DOE?s pilot program.

The NGVPPT is a seven-year pilot program that will peg the price of CNG at P14.52 a liter, less than half the price of diesel, for participating bus operators. It is meant to push forward the use of natural gas for transport.

Shell Companies in the Philippines owns and operates the lone CNG mother station in Tabangao, Batangas and the only daughter station in Laguna under this program.

But with only one mother and one daughter station, the CNG-fed buses are currently limited to plying the Manila/Cubao to Laguna/Batangas route.

Earlier this year, bus operators have threatened to pull out of the program when Shell?s Mamplasan daughter station failed to operate and provide fuel for CNG buses, months after the Bridge of Promise collapsed in late 2009.

Shell was unable to transport CNG from the mother station in Tabangao to the daughter station.

But despite such setbacks, the bus operators remained confident that the program?s objectives could still be achieved if the government would implement the necessary measures.