North American bus manufacturing giant New Flyer Industries Inc. (ticker: NFI), announced on Monday that it contracted with New York City Transit Authority (NYCT) to deliver 110 heavy-duty 60-foot articulated buses—fueled with compressed natural gas (CNG).
The state-funded contract, a firm order for 110 XN60 Xcelsior CNG-powered buses, is valued at US $95 million, the company said in a press release. New Flyer said the natural gas powered buses come with a 20-year certified CNG tank and a fire-suppression system.
The company said some of the components for the New York order will be manufactured in its Jamestown, NY facility. New Flyer employs about 5,000 people in the U.S. and Canada. Subsidiaries include Motor Coach Industries Limited and Motor Coach Industries, Inc.
New York’s decision to formally ban hydraulic fracturing in 2015 made it the first state with access to significant natural gas resources to impose a ban. Neighboring Pennsylvania has benefitted tremendously from the production of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, so much so in fact, that New York’s Southern Tier threatened secession to Pennsylvania in an attempt to draw attention to how much the region would benefit from hydraulic fracturing.
Pennsylvania’s Marcellus gas producers, its oil and gas industry workers, car dealers, real estate brokers, retail and restaurant industries might celebrate New York’s CNG bus order and encourage other East coast transit authorities to follow suit.
