The National Agency for the Promotion and Rationalisation of Energy Use (Aprue) has launched a 2018-2021 conversion programme to transform about 500,000 vehicles to LPG, allowing a net saving of $ 2.19 billion over the period 2018-2030.

The initiative was presented by Samir Houghlaoune, director of the Agency of the Hydrocarbons Regulation Authority (ARH); Mustapha Nouri, LPG Director at Naftal; and Kamel Dali, Project Manager at Aprue.

Regarding the finance part, Nouri said that the State will fund 50% of the costs of the import of 50,000 conversion kits during 2018. He explained that under an agreement between his company and the National Youth Employment Support Agency (Ansej), on the creation of microenterprises specialising in the conversion of vehicles to LPG, Naftal trained technicians in several provinces.

Nouri recalled that the Ministry of Industry and Mines has been asked to require car manufacturers to produce an annual quota of 10% of gasoline powered vehicles equipped with an Autogas kit. To help achieve these goals, he said that Naftal plans in its 2018-2020 investment programme to multiply its LPG storage capacity to 44,000 tonnes.

Naftal will also increase its refuelling station network “to make LPG available every 20 km,” said Nouri. About the development of conversion centres, he informed that in 2018 Naftal will set up 50 workshops increasing the conversion capacity to 25,000 vehicles per year, a capacity that will increase to 30,000 in 2019 and to 40,000 in 2020. Overall, the plan aims to achieve the conversion of 500,000 vehicles to Autogas by 2020.

For his part, Dali mainly focused on the communication campaign and awareness that Aprue will run to support the conversion programme. Regarding the target audience in the development programme, a first stage in 2018 will involve 50,000 users receiving a state aid of up to 50% of the cost of the conversion. For more information, please check this link.

14 March 2018