“The upcoming call for equipment and technologies provision will enable us to analyze the suitability, feasibility, and, above all, the quality of the conversion process,” said the managing director of the Executing Agency of Compressed Natural Gas conversion scheme (EEC-GNV, as in its Spanish acronym), Carlos Asport. The goal in this case is to reduce both diesel consumption and import.
According to the newspaper Cambio, the officials intend to obtain financing mainly from international cooperation. Technical studies to extend the conversion program to diesel have been already carried out. Most of this fleet is located in Santa Cruz (consisting of nearly 7,000 buses), Cochabamba and La Paz.
Besides, Asport forecasts that 34,000 vehicles will be converted to natural gas within 2012 and it is also expected that the total fleet of Cochabamba will operate on natural gas.
