Egypt Learns to Gas Up the Natural Way

Guiding his 1978 Peugeot taxi through puffs of black smoke coughed out by traffic all around him, Mahmoud Ibrahim is in the vanguard of Egypt’s latest battle against pollution.

Under the hood of his dusty jalopy purrs an engine converted from gasoline usage to run on natural gas. Its benefits are thankfully invisible: It emits virtually no carbon monoxide and very little of the other noxious fumes that gasoline-fueled cars spew.

Some 11,000 people in Cairo, almost all taxi drivers, have converted their engines to work with inexpensive natural gas since January 1996 under a government-sponsored project.

The company installing the $1,500 conversion kits says demand is so high that hundreds of cars are on a waiting list.

The lure is high savings rather than environmental concern. Natural gas is half the price of gasoline, which sells for 1 Egyptian pound a liter, about $1 a gallon.

Industry experts are hailing Egypt’s experience as a valuable lesson for fighting air pollution cheaply and safely in smoggy megacities around the world, from New Delhi to Mexico City.

“It is an exciting opportunity,” Jeff Seisler, president of the International Assn. for Natural Gas Vehicles, said in a telephone interview from his office in the Netherlands. “The Egyptian program is very impressive . . . it has taken off so rapidly.”

This success is even causing problems for the program. Because so many vehicles have been converted to natural gas, drivers complain about long waits at the only 14 fueling stations in Cairo--which could discourage others from making the change.

Seisler sympathizes with the authorities as well as customers.

“This is a chicken and egg situation: Which should come first, customers or fueling stations? To get that balance is crucial and takes time,” Seisler said.

Natural gas was a natural solution for Egypt.

Its known gas reserves--36 trillion cubic feet--can last at least 20 years. And the country’s leaders are firmly behind gas, which is the cleanest-burning hydrocarbon fuel.

Ibrahim, the taxi driver, said he was persuaded by a friend to convert about a year ago. “I am very happy. And proud that I am saving the air,” he said at a fueling station, which looks similar to a gas station.

Cairo’s air exceeds the World Health Organization’s acceptable limits for most pollutants.

The suffocating cocktail of gases emitted by the city’s 1.2 million vehicles--two-thirds of them aging and badly maintained--is the second biggest pollutant after emissions from some 800 factories around the city.

Dust from the surrounding desert adds to the woes of the city’s 15 million residents.

The commercial use of compressed natural gas started in 1996, when Egypt also banned leaded gasoline. The Natural Gas Vehicles Co., a joint venture of the government and the U.S. oil company Amoco, operates fueling stations and converts engines so they can run either on natural gas or gasoline.

Frank Chapel, managing director of the company, compares Egypt’s success with a program he managed in Atlanta, where a busy natural gas fueling station would handle 10 to 15 cars a day.

“In Egypt many of our stations are fueling over 1,000 vehicles a day,” he said.

In the program’s first year, Egypt was 37th among the 43 countries using natural gas vehicles. Today, it stands at No. 8 among 47. Argentina is at the top, with more than 400,000 gas vehicles.

Issam Nabil el-Nawari, a taxi driver, dragged a reporter to the back of his Hyundai cab to show how clean natural gas burns. He held a white handkerchief to the exhaust pipe for 30 seconds. The cloth remained pristine.

When held up to a gasoline taxi’s exhaust, it was quickly stained with soot. El-Nawari made a face and tossed the cloth away.

But el-Nawari is upset that he sometimes must wait up to two hours at fueling stations, joining a line that runs 100 cars long into the streets.

El-Nawari, who bought his taxi last year, said he loses about $15 in fares during his twice-a-day fuel stops, limiting his daily earnings to about $30.

“I am happy for my country, yes. But I need happiness for my family . . . my three boys,” el-Nawari said.