LNG trucks rev up as China puts brakes on diesel

Yutian, China

ON a recent morning in Yutian, a dusty town bisected by the highway that connects Beijing to the sea, Su Meiquan strolled into a dealership packed with hulking trucks and prepared to drive off with a brand new rig.

After years of driving a diesel truck for a trucking company, he had decided to buy his own vehicle - a bright red rig fuelled with liquefied natural gas (LNG), capable of hauling as much as 40 tonnes of loads such as steel or slabs of marble.