Motorists driving compressed natural gas vehicles having trouble filling up their tanks at Questar Gas Co. stations may have that trouble for a while longer.

Rob Jibson, president and chief executive officer of Questar Gas, said Wednesday that strong customer demand for gas has outpaced capacity at the fueling stations — a problem that arose this spring. Depleted supplies have resulted in poor compression in the systems, leaving CNG motorists unable to fill their tanks or forced them to drive around to look for fuel.

"But there isn't a good short-term answer" to the problem, although the company is working on solutions, Jibson told the Deseret News editorial board Wednesday.

"I think to say that it would be a situation where they don't have to plan ahead, (it's) probably not in the short term," he said. "I think as far as the situation where they start to find that the compression is a little higher, that they're able to fill up a full tank more often ... it's not going to be a quantum leap real quick. It's going to be gradual."

Twenty-one public stations in Utah handle fueling for 6,000 to 10,000 CNG vehicles in the state, but those stations got busier this spring when the popularity of the vehicles jumped as gasoline costs climbed above $3 per gallon. By comparison, a gallon of compressed natural gas ranged from 60 cents to 80 cents. It's now 87 cents.

"We haven't seen this same thing across the country," Jibson said. "Because of our low rates, the difference between natural gas prices and gasoline prices has been so great that we all of the sudden recently have seen a huge increase in the volume and the demand of natural gas for vehicles."

Demand quadrupled this spring, compared to a year earlier. "And we've been caught trying to catch up to that and it's been difficult, to say the least," he said.

The company has been "looking at multiple strategies" to address the problem, but getting new compressors installed at stations can have a 12-month lead time. A new station is Sandy is being readied and the company is considering moving larger compressors to busier stations with smaller compressors or bringing in used compression equipment, he said.

"We're trying to do everything within our ability right now to improve that situation," Jibson said. "We're doing the things we need to, we think."

Utah could benefit from activities nationwide, he added, including automakers making more CNG vehicles, lower prices for conversion kits for existing gasoline vehicles and better fueling station infrastructure across the country, he said.

"We think that Utah can be a model for other states as to the way to use natural gas in vehicles," he said. "We think it's a good solution, but we need this to be more than just in Utah."

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