Mr. Woodburn: I'm not a natural gas analyst, but I do cover the companies that benefit from using natural gas as a transportation fuel. In terms of where we are with natural gas prices "stuck," it depends on which way you're looking at that. Stuck with the price on the way down if you're comparing today's price to the last six or seven years, or stuck on the way up from where we were in the summer. What I have been noticing lately is that the natural gas producers, the independents here in North America, have been working pretty hard not just exploiting the shale deposits in North America, but banding together and trying to stimulate demand because they've got plenty of natural gas they can supply. Obviously, compared to where it has been historically, they would certainly like to see the price go up with an increase in demand.
TWST: When you say you cover the companies that use natural gas, how do you define that?
Mr. Woodburn: There are three of them that trade in the U.S. One is Westport Innovations, the Nasdaq ticker is WPRT. Westport has technology to enable traditional engines to burn natural gas instead of diesel fuel. There is also Clean Energy Fuels. They design, build and operate natural gas fueling stations for municipalities or private fleets. Some of these are also public access stations, often serving taxis and airport shuttles, and things like that. But you or I could pull up and refuel a natural gas vehicle there as well. Lastly, there's Fuel Systems Solutions. They have a transportation business that enables passenger vehicles and light-duty commercial vehicles to run on gasoline or natural gas/LP gas. Over the past two years, most of their growth has come from outside the U.S., receiving vehicles directly from the factory, converting them so that they would run on both petroleum fuel and natural gas fuel, and then shipping them to the dealers where they're sold as new cars. They also have an industrial line of business for forklifts and things like that that run on natural gas.
Tickers included in this excerpt: CLNE, CMI, FSYS, PCAR
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