Europe’s leading supplier of renewable biomethane for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), CNG Fuels, is set to acquire a majority stake in Renewable Transport Fuel Services Limited (RTFS), the largest renewable biomethane sourcing company for UK transport, creating one of Europe’s largest fully integrated biomethane suppliers for heavy transport.
Skyrocketing demand
A new holding company, ReFuels, has been established to better reflect the growing scope of the business. ReFuels combines CNG Fuels’ rapidly growing UK network of public access Bio-CNG refuelling stations with RTFS’s upstream biomethane sourcing activities to help meet the rapidly increasing demand for biomethane.
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 RTFS 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 continue to use the CNG Fuels brand name for its Bio-CNG refuelling station network, to maintain its dominant UK brand profile. The company serves more than 80 individual customer fleets and around 1,300 HGVS refuel at its stations daily with this number is expected to reach more than 2,000 by this time next year.
Strengthening the supply chain
CNG Fuels currently has ten 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 Q3 2023. Most sites are owned in its successful 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.
The acquisition of RTFS will further strengthen the business’s capability to meet its customers’ growing appetite for bio-CNG and will also provide significant benefits to biomethane producers who will now have long-term direct access to the downstream customer demand.