The city's two buses that run oncompressed natural gas will have to stop operating temporarily becausethe gas supplier has decided to stop selling fuel to the bus station.

Only one company, the Southern Liquid Gas Trade JSC, supplies theroute between district 6 and Thu Duc district.

"The company told us to stop operation of the station since it needs50 stops a day by buses to ensure profit," said Phung Dang Hai, chairmanof HCM City Union of Transport Cooperatives.

The company runs two main outlets in Vung Tau City and 15retailer stations, with one in HCM City 's Tan Binh district.

"The station will stop operating next month if we do not add moreCNG-fueled buses," Hai told the Sai Gon Tiep Thi (Sai Gon Marketing)newspaper. "That means we're going to set the buses aside."

A CNG-fueled bus costs 2 billion VND (0.1 million USD) while the samebus run by diesel costs only 1.1 billion VND.

Hai said the city had not developed a policy to provide financialsupport to the union so it could buy green buses.

Associate Professor Dr Pham Xuan Mai, dean of HCM CityPolytechnic University 's traffic technology faculty, said the costfor switching from a diesel to CNG fuelled-bus was 25,000 USD.

The cost for 10,000 CNG buses in HCM City would be 250 millionUSD, he said. Each CNG bus could save about 8,000 USD a year.

"Operating 10,000 CNG buses over three years would cover the cost,"Mai told Sai Gon Tiep Thi newspaper.

Earlier, the gas supplier and the union had reached an agreement onthe price of CNG, with one tonne of CNG costing 40 percent lower thanthe market cost of one tonne of diesel.

The two CNG buses began running on May 6. "CNG buses run with a silentengine, no exhaust gas and help us cut costs," Hai said./.