Apr 30 2013
Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Hexagon Lincoln, Hexagon Composites has been awarded its largest North American TITAN™ order yet totalling approximately USD 11 million (NOK 64 million) with an option to extend for a total of nearly USD 22 million (NOK 128 million) to supply lightweight TITAN™ modules to Xpress Natural Gas in the U.S.
"TITAN™ interest in the North American market continues to be strong", says Chet Dawes, Director of Sales for North America. "The benefits of TITAN™ are being demonstrated throughout the world and we are excited to have such a great partner in Xpress Natural Gas to continue to showcase the use of TITAN™ in the US."
Xpress Natural Gas (XNG) is a Massachusetts-based company delivering North American natural gas to a wide range of businesses and institutions that are not currently served by pipelines. With this order, XNG will continue to add to its existing TITAN™ fleet as the company expands its CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) Rolling Pipeline™ gas solutions to industrial, commercial, and municipal customers throughout the U.S. Northeast and the Canadian Maritime provinces.
"We are very pleased with our experience using the TITAN™ modules. The combination of light weight and higher storage capacity has lowered our cost of delivery across the board," said John Nahill, President of Xpress Natural Gas, LLC. "We expect the TITAN™ to be the default in service to all of our large customer accounts."
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) awarded Hexagon Lincoln a special permit in 2012 to allow use of TITAN™ transportation modules in the U.S. Also in 2012, Transport Canada granted an equivalency certificate to allow the use of TITAN™ in Canada as well opening up additional market opportunities. The market interest in natural gas as an alternative energy source is rapidly growing due to the large price difference between natural gas and oil. Even with significant pipeline networks in the U.S., there are still many commercial operations located off the pipeline grid that will realize significant cost savings by switching to natural gas for their power generation needs.
TITAN™ gas transportation modules are made by Hexagon Lincoln in the United States and contain the world's largest composite cylinders (Type 4). The modular design approach allows movement of up to 10,200 SCM (355,000 SCF) of natural gas in a 40 feet module with a gross weight of less than 24 metric tons (53,000 pounds). With its significantly lighter weight and substantially larger transport capacity, the TITAN™ has proven to reduce operational fuel consumption by more than 60% compared with conventional steel trailer technology.
In 2012, Hexagon Lincoln delivered over 70 lightweight TITAN™ transport modules worldwide and has already been awarded supply contracts to supply more than 130 TITAN™ modules throughout 2013 into Mexico, Asia, South America and the USA.
Hexagon Composites ASA is a listed company with headquarters in Ålesund. The group has more than 500 employees and had a turnover of NOK 1 033 million in 2012. The group develops and manufactures composite containers for storage and transport of various pressurized gases and multiaxial composite reinforcements.