Lowe’s Moving Freight to Natural Gas Trucks
Home-improvement retailer Lowes’s Companies Inc. announced it is joining fleets in shifting its freight to trucks powered by natural gas.
“Our goal is to replace all of our diesel-powered dedicated fleets with natural gas trucks by the end of 2017,” Steve Palmer, Lowe’s vice president of transportation, said in an Oct. 17 statement.
“Lowe’s is working with its truckload carriers to convert their Lowe’s-dedicated fleets,” the announcement said.
Lowe’s said it began using natural gas trucks last year at its distribution center in Kissimmee, Fla., and has contracted with a longtime carrier partner, New Jersey-based NFI Industries, to run a dedicated natural gas fleet at the Lowe’s regional distribution center in Mount Vernon, Texas.
Lowe’s said it expects the fleet to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions nearly 20% and control fuel costs while transporting up to 68 truckloads a day to stores in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
The retailer said Clean Energy Fuels is helping “accelerate the transition to natural gas” and that the fuel supplier will service the NFI fleet by opening a natural gas station in Sulphur Springs, Texas.
