BY ROBERT L. BAKER
Times-Shamrock Writer
STAFF PHOTOS/ROBERT BAKER
Procter & Gamble Project Manager Cale Newswanger, left, warehouse operations manager John Naughton and spokesman Alex Fried stand next to where the compressed natural gas is harnessed to power a CNG filling station in Wyoming County that by next year should be able to service around 100 rigs a day.
The Procter & Gamble plant in Wyoming County is on target to expanding its compressed natural gas station to near capacity so that it can now target tractor-trailer rigs carrying products within a 250-mile radius of the giant Exel-operated P&G warehouse.
Even though it houses pumps that take your standard credit cards, P&G project manager Cale Newswanger said, “I wouldn’t call it a public station. It’s just semi-private.”
P&G spokesman Alex Fried said it was really, “a work in progress. This is just the next logical step.”
The Trillium CNG station which two years ago came into being after forklifts previously powered by electricity were converted to CNG, and that was followed by jockey trucks that moved product from the P&G plant which brings you Pampers and Luvs diapers, Bounty napkins and paper towels and Charmin toilet tissue to the warehouse five miles away, has now jumped light years ahead as the industry is finding that tractor-trailer rigs are now outfitted with tanks capable of holding compressed natural gas.
Newswanger said that the Cummings’ 12-liter engine perfected a year ago made it all possible.
But so did UGI Penn Natural Gas putting in a new 6-inch pipeline to the warehouse from the UGI Energy Services Auburn One line. The Auburn line transports gas from P&G’s and other Marcellus wells operated by Warren Resources, Fried added.
John Naughton, operations manager for the giant P&G Warehouse run by Exel, said the CNG station can now service up to 70 rigs on its four pumps.
Fried said that Swift, Kane and Schneider each had a fleet run by compressed natural gas.
Fred Claridge of Tunkhannock, an over-the-road carrier for Swift hauling P&G products to a Rite-Aid Warehouse in Liverpool, N.Y., demonstrated last Thursday morning how easy it was to just swipe his Trillium CNG card and then make the necessary connections between the pump and the five cylindrical tanks that sit behind his cab.
“This is the future of now,” Fried smiled.
Newswanger called the “new” technology extremely safe.
He noted that because the vehicle gas tanks were highly pressurized to accommodate the CNGs, they are surrounded by one inch of steel and one inch of carbon fiber.
As for the station, he explained that a pair of CNG pumps is powered by a small compressor station that sits at one end of the warehouse, next to another small compressor that outfits another pair of pumps.
The station will reach capacity, probably early next year, when a third small compressor will power two more pumps, and a fleet of around 100 rigs will be able to move product, and improving the carbon footprint on the environment, because the rigs are no longer run by diesel.
Fried said P&G wanted to thank the entities that have partnered to make it all possible including Trillium for the station, Warren Resources for bringing the gas up, UGI-Penn Natural Gas for moving it, Exel for its operations mindset, and the carriers who had confidence in making the investment for the future.
“It all works, when we all work together,” he said.
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