Chicago-based Integrys Energy Group’s Trillium CNG unit has formed a joint venture with AMP Americas to build a national network of natural gas transportation fueling stations. AMP Trillium initially would concentrate on upper Midwest and Texas highway corridors.

The numbers of stations and ultimate locations were not divulged in an announcement late Tuesday, but the partners said the first station is to be opened in the fall. “The stations will be open to the public, though the primary customers will likely be heavy duty, long-haul trucking fleets, which are the target of earlier announced industry-wide efforts to create ‘America’s Natural Gas Highway’,” a Trillium spokesperson said (see Daily GPI, Aug. 25, 2011).

Trillium, a long-time provider of CNG fueling services, was acquired by the Integrys Group last September, and AMP Americas owns two CNG fueling stations in Indiana. In partnership with Fair Oaks Farms, AMP manages a fleet of 42 CNG-powered milk transport trucks that use renewable CNG made from dairy cow manure.

The new stations would feature fast-fill capabilities and plan to offer special fuel pricing to encourage more fleets to take advantage of CNG’s price and environmental benefits, a spokesperson said. Whenever it is possible, CNG would be provided as what Trillium calls “the chemical equivalent of fossil-based natural gas,” when it can be obtained from food or animal waste. By this fall, the JV plans to have 42 of AMP’s milk trucks running entirely on renewable CNG.

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