General Electric and Chesapeake Energy have teamed up to offer "CNG in a Box," an all-in-one package that gas stations and convenience stores could purchase to add a pump for compressed natural gas. While we don't know how much the pump will cost, GE and Chesapeake claim that stations can operate them at higher margins than regular gas pumps, which could make them compelling.
When looking at natural gas as a transport fuel, its future is by far the strongest in fleet vehicles, which are already diving head-first into vehicles that run on cheap natural gas. If adapted widely by gas stations and convenience stores, the "CNG in a Box" device could help convince customers to purchase natural gas powered vehicles. Still, as analyst Brendan Byrnes explains in the video below, there remain a lot of variables to sort out, making it unlikely that natural gas vehicles go mainstream within the next decade.
