CNG Fuels has announced it will acquire a majority stake in Renewable Transport Fuel Services Limited (RTFS).
CNG Fuels describes itself as Europe’s leading supplier of renewable biomethane for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), and says RTFS is the largest renewable biomethane sourcing company for UK transport.
A new holding company, ReFuels, has been established to better reflect the growing scope of the business. ReFuels combines CNG Fuels’ UK network of public access Bio-CNG refuelling stations with RTFS’s upstream biomethane sourcing activities to create one of Europe’s largest fully integrated renewable biomethane suppliers for heavy transport.
Philip Fjeld, CEO of ReFuels and CNG Fuels, said: “Running trucks on Bio-CNG has now become ‘business as usual’ for fleet operators and CNG trucks are being adopted en masse UK-wide as fleet operators recognise Bio-CNG as the most cost-effective and lowest carbon alternative fuel to diesel available today. In 2022 alone, we saw dispensed volume increase by 62% compared to 2021 and we expect to surpass this growth rate in 2023.
“Acquiring a majority stake in Renewable Transport Fuel Service enables us to become a fully-integrated supplier of 100% sustainable and renewable biomethane – from the producer down to the dispenser nozzle. Under our new ReFuels structure, we are very well-positioned to accelerate our sustainable growth rate and help the sector decarbonise even faster.”
ReFuels will keep the CNG Fuels brand name for its Bio-CNG refuelling station network. The company serves more than 80 individual customer fleets, including brands such as Amazon, Royal Mail, Aldi, Waitrose , Warburtons and EVRi. Around 1,300 HGVs refuel at its stations daily and this number is expected to reach more than 2,000 trucks by this time next year based on confirmed orders from its customers.
CNG Fuels currently has 10 stations in operation, enabling low carbon deliveries from Inverness to Cornwall. Three further sites are in construction, with four more going into construction by the end of October this year.
Most sites are owned in its joint venture with Foresight Group, CNG Foresight. The 10 existing sites can refuel around 5,000 high mileage HGVs per day, and the new sites will increase total capacity to around 8,500 HGVs per day by the middle of 2024, enabling 5% of the UK’s heaviest truck fleet to access biomethane along the UK’s major trucking routes.
