While there are a number of options, including electric power for light-duty vehicles, there is really only one viable option to replacing diesel fuel in heavy-duty fleet vehicles such as buses, trucks and construction equipment, and that is natural gas, Rich Kolodziej, president of NGVAmerica, told Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI).

“There’s a lot of competition in the light-duty market, from propane, ethanol and electric. In the diesel market there’s no competition.” The U.S. could expand the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) for transportation from about a 40 Bcf market last year to 1.25 Tcf annually in the next 10-15 years, Kolodziej said, replacing 10 billion gallons of diesel fuel.

That’s one viewpoint; other industry leaders think the greater prospects for natural gas will be riding the climate clean-up wave to back out coal in electric power generation plants.

Kolodziej will be making his case in a presentation at GasMart 2010, the annual forum and network center for the natural gas industry and its customers, coming up May 10-12 in Chicago. He is just one of an outstanding lineup of key industry representatives speaking at this 24th annual GasMart, hosted by Intelligence Press Inc., publisher of the Natural Gas Intelligence newsletters.

Will this be “the natural gas century” in the United States and elsewhere, building on the massively expanding development of reserves? There are some who think so. For BP Energy North America Gas and Power, the issue is “not about the rocks and the resources, but what goes on above the ground…the politics and access issues.” Herb Vogel, the BP unit’s new president, will be talking about the need to get the word out, informing the American people and Congress of the benefits of America’s own secure, clean, plentiful resource.

At the same time Will Hussey, ConocoPhillips senior vice president, Origination, will outline just how vast the resources are. His company is a major player in several of the new shale gas basins with a heavy inventory of drilling prospects. ConocoPhillips and other producers now are developing new capital spending strategies to make the most of the new market.

Porter Bennett, president of Bentek Energy, will discuss infrastructure and basis changes accompanying new field developments across the country. Executives from CenterPoint Energy and Integrys Energy Services will address strategies for end-users in the new market. The Process Gas Consumers will hold a luncheon in conjunction with GasMart 2010.

These are just a few of the industry experts who will address the estimated 500 attendees and join in more casual discussions in GasMart’s Market Network Center Exhibit Hall adjacent to the meeting room in the downtown Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers.

Leading off the conference on May 10, sponsors IntercontinentalExchange, Bentek and NGX are inviting GasMart attendees to their Wrigley Field Rooftops hospitality suite as the Chicago Cubs square off against the Florida Marlins. Other GasMart attendees will be playing in a golf tournament to be held the same day at Ruffled Feathers Golf Club, sponsored by NASDAQ OMX Commodities.

Interested parties can sign up or find out the details, and which of your colleagues have already registered, at gasmart.com. Qualified end-users of natural gas are invited to attend for free.

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