Friday, October 16, 2015

Grays Harbor Approves CNG Facility

By Mark Edward Nero

At an Oct. 13 meeting, the Port of Grays Harbor Commission approved a ten-year lease for 4.3 acres with Xpress Natural Gas LLC, paving the way for the port to eventually become landlord to a $3 million compressed natural gas facility.

Xpress Natural Gas has been given approval to build a compressed natural gas distribution terminal that in the port’s Satsop Business Park area that would utilize the existing natural gas line to fill portable tubes for transport to industrial customers throughout the region.

An additional $2 million would be invested in the fleet of CNG trucks and trailers that will service XNG’s customers. The operation would be manned 24 hours per day and XNG said it expects to employ 20-25 people at full build out, in addition to the construction and trucking service jobs that would be generated.

XNG operates similar facilities in New York and Maine.

“Energy is a growing sector of our nation’s economy and we are excited a new business will be able to take advantage of one of the Park’s great assets, the natural gas line,” said Alissa Shay, Satsop Business Park’s manager of business development.

XNG is a Boston-based logistics and transportation company that manages a “virtual pipeline” that provides trucked natural gas solutions to locations where a pipeline does not provide gas service.

XNG operates one of the largest fleet of high-capacity, all-composite CNG trailers in North America and is the only provider of CNG services using CNG-powered tractor-trucks.

Satsop Business Park is less than two hours southwest of Seattle and two hours north of Portland. The 1,800-acre mixed-use business and industrial park is also 30 minutes from Olympia, Wash. and is home to over 30 businesses on 600 acres of developed land.