Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

[mattamhop]

Is there any place as disfunctional as the State of New York? Seriously is anyone, anywhere paying more for CNG than even the highest prices for Gasoline? CE is charging $1.99/gal here in upstate NY and locally our gasoline prices are down around the low 1.80's and high 1.70's...and no one is getting away with selling gasoline for $1.99. I called their "Emergency" number on the pump (seemed like an emergency to me...of the criminal kind) and they gave me a long story about how much they invest in infrastructure in building the pumps...too bad none of it was true. NYS owns and built every single station in the State, CE just leases a handful of them.
Did I not read here on CNGChat a CE guy state that they, as a company policy, peg the price of CNG to undercut local gasoline prices by .30 to .50 cents? The CE guy I spoke to today said that that was not at all their company policy. Can any of you moderators dig up that CE rep's posting from a few months ago and set the record straight?

[Steve]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

Here ya go, second post on the thread:

http://www.cngchat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1165

"..makes me want to pass gas" the Clean Energy natural gas kind... made me chuckle.

[Lakewood90712]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

Well , in Los Angeles gasoline is about the same as your quoted prices and C.E. dropped to $1.65 . The local regulated utility SoCalGas (Sempra)was well over $2.00 for cng last week at the San Pedro station.

If I use my C. E. Feet account, my fixed price is $1.99, so I'm happy to pay the $1.65 "retail" price. Fleet customers don't always get the best price.
Fleet customers make a deal for fuel sometimes years in advance. Usually works out , but now we are in strange times indeed.

In years past , the retail price for cng always spiked in the winter , same as other natural gas.

[ajgiorgi]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

Even in the bay area you can get 87 octane for 1.75 and nat gas at pg and e is 1.80. I think the companies cant keep up with the price because its dropping too fast. Pg and e has a monthly price, so it should drop below on the 1st of the new year.

[Curtis]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

Mattamhop, I've heard complaints of CE requiring a substantial deposit to get their card in your area. Are they still doing that, and how do you feel about this practice? I was also wondering if you had some suggestions for a better way to approach this issue?

[Larryect]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

What I believe is the actual problem is the expectation, and it appears, acceptace of the idea of tying the CNG price to the price of gasoline at all. The problem with this is they should have nothing to do with each other. I heard, and agree with, complaints of paying $3.00 + when gasoline was high. But now I hear complaints that CNG is not below gasoline.....

Which way do we want it? I believe CNG needs to, and can, stand on it's own. The price of gasoline is temporary and will go way up again. Do we really want CNG tied to it? I don't. The price should be based on the price of the product plus delivery costs plus a reasonable ROI....

[mattamhop]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

Amen all around. I bought my van so that I would not be tied to oil (economically, politically, ethically, environmentally...in short in any way). That CE (as stated by the CO guy earlier in this thread, but denied by my North East rep) pegs their pricing of CNG to gasoline prices really steams me.
As for the deposit for a card, yup $100, and then the kicker is that they bill my credit card directly any way. So all I am doing by getting a CE card is, paying them $100 to allow them to bill me directly.... go figure? Better ways to "approach" this? It is a no brainer, just go to a regular, slide your credit card and move on system. It works in just about every other context in the world why not this one?

[Beej]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

So it is totally weak that CE told you a different answer than what James clearly states in his post. I guess not everyone in the company is aware of how they do business.

What I believe is the actual problem is the expectation, and it appears, acceptace of the idea of tying the CNG price to the price of gasoline at all.

I couldn't agree with this statement more. As we look at the commodity prices, all energy prices are WAY down from their July highs, but not the same way. Crude oil futures are down 72% from high to low, gasoline futures are down 75%, and near as I can figure, here in UT gas prices at the pump are down 70%, I think the rest of the country is probably in that same range. That all seems to go fairly hand in hand.

Now, while nat gas futures are down, they are down a little less than 60% from high to low. (It probably hasn't fallen as far due to winter time demand.) It is a different commodity and should be handled differently from gasoline. I believe it is the commodity price, and the costs associated with bringing it into a specific area, that should have the greatest impact on the price at the pump.

Since gasoline prices have mostly followed their commodity price down, shouldn't the question for CE and all the other gas companies be "Why aren't we paying 60% less at the pump for our CNG?"

That being said, I also think once a month is a little slow to adjust prices. That model just can't keep up with the volatility we have in today's market place.

For now UT is highly regulated thanks to Questar's monopoly, and we enjoy very low prices, prices I'm sure will always beat gasoline, but I fear that they will soon give up on CNG and sell off the pumps to CE or someone else. Before that happens I think there should be some accountability to how prices are set.

[Kevin Fern]

Re: Singing the CE/CNG Blues, or CE makes me want to pass gas.

Here in AZ, Clean Energy runs the pumps at the Airport (SkyHarbor), I have to admit, though i'm not happy with the prices following gasoline, that they do have the best run stations and they always work (and you get a complete fill). The cost of the stations and to keep them up to shape, is not a short undertaking. I only hope that the fleet demand keeps growing and that it can support new stations in the future. I would like to think, that AZ can follow Utah's lead in making private (state owned) stations open to the public. Keeping in mind first responders, this would help the overall issue of stations in the phoenix area, now we just need more vehicles, or vis versa,