Eaton remains optimistic about new hoses

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.—Eaton Corp. P.L.C. still has high hopes for two hose products it has unveiled for the condensed natural gas market despite the fact that dropping oil prices have changed the current economic dynamics of the market.

Eaton's Eden Prairie-based Hydraulics Group introduced the high pressure 35NG hose and low pressure NG-TW hose, both of which were tested by TUV Rheinland and were among the first to be certified to the ANSI NGV 4.2 Class A and D and ANSI NGV 3.1 Class B & C specifications, according to Eaton. The hoses are primarily aimed at dispensing applications and in such commercial vehicles as refuse trucks, buses and delivery vehicles.

The 35NG high pressure line meets both the 4.2 specifications for dispensing applications and the 3.1 Class B standard for a high pressure hose used on a CNG vehicle, said Chris Schwab, an Eaton global product manager. The low pressure NG-TW hose is certified to 3.1 Class B for on-vehicle use, but it has a higher temperature rating, up to 120 degrees C for under-the-hood applications.

The 35NG hose has an ultraviolet-resistant cover and lasts five times longer than competitive products, Eaton claimed. Its hose assemblies are designed to dissipate static electricity for better safety while dispensing natural gas.

The NG-TW hose is built to withstand high temperatures found under the hood, is extremely flexible and offers a low permeation rate, the company said.

Schwab said Eaton started looking at the CNG market more closely about 21/2 years ago, when oil prices were high, diesel was selling for about $4 a gallon and fracking was taking off in North America. Eaton had offered a hose under its Synflex brand for dispensing applications that had been on the market for more than 30 years.

But with condensed natural gas at the time costing roughly $2 per diesel gallon equivalent—along with the upturn in fracking—it was felt there was need for newer, high-end products.

“What we were seeing in the market at that time were truck manufacturers building natural gas trucks for these fleets,” Schwab said. “They would see a huge savings when it came to running a natural gas truck as opposed to a diesel truck—especially for refuse vehicles and transit buses.”

At the same time, he said the industry realized there was a lack of technical specifications covering the hoses for both vehicles and dispensing. There was the need for standards looking at such things as what components should be used and what performance the products should have.

An industry technical committee looked at existing specs—which mostly covered dispensing—and also to develop one for on-vehicle hoses. After the new and revised standards were released in the spring of 2014, Eaton conferred with TUV—a firm that certifies the specifications are met—and worked for the past 11/2 years to obtain the certifications, according to Schwab.

It produces the 35NG hose at its Synflex factory in Aurora, Ohio, and the NG-TW line at its facility in Middlesex, N.C.

But Eaton didn't have just the products certified; it also had to receive certification on properly building the assembly. “We can't just sell bulk product to any of our distributors and have them build an assembly, like they do in hydraulic hose,” he said.

The assembly needs certification, he added, to ensure that an engineered system is built. “You don't want the assembler to grab a certified hose but then use another manufacturer's fitting. They weren't designed to work together,” Schwab said.

Eaton is in the process of building a certified network of assembly locations within its distributor base, with about eight distributors working on certification, with others considering it. In the meantime, the first certified assembly location is at an Eaton plant in Van Wert, Ohio.

“We service large OEMs direct,” he said. “Many of our existing customers have platforms that run on CNG, but we haven't been able to service them in the past. Van Wert is a large hose assembly plant for us, and we created a CNG hose assembly within that plant to service those customers.”

In addition, any Eaton distributor can order a certified assembly from Eaton for sale to its end user customers. Even with this arrangement, Schwab said there are benefits for distributors to obtain the certification.

“We can't provide the same level of service as our distributor partner can,” he said. “They have customers locally that can walk in with broken CNG hose and get it made. They also can service smaller accounts that Eaton can't do as well.”

Each of the assemblies must past tests on pressure and electrical resistance. “High pressure gas goes through the lines. The last thing you want is to have a static buildup and to have a static spark inside the line,” Schwab said.

He acknowledged that economic benefits previously envisioned have gone away in today's market. The current price of diesel fuel actually is less than a diesel gallon equivalent of CNG. But the Eaton executive said the company still is seeing growth, with fleets and municipalities converting existing trucks to run on natural gas or purchase new trucks that run on the fuel.

One reason for that is natural gas has a lower carbon footprint than diesel fuel, he said. NG trucks also don't have to have selective catalytic reduction equipment that standard trucks may need to meet Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

There also are federal, state and local government incentives available for running alternative fuel. For example, Congress recently passed an alternative fuel excise tax credit for using CNG as a transportation fuel.

“The other reason is it's a domestic fuel,” Schwab said. “No longer is the U.S. looking to have to buy fuel from the Middle East. The last report was that discovery of fuel in North America was 150 years' worth based on current consumption of fuel and transportation.”

Despite the growth, there are limitations on use of CNG, including such factors as dispensing systems and lack of infrastructure.

The two types of dispensing systems are fast fill, where a truck can be filled in about the same time as filling with diesel, and time-fill stations, where re-fuel-ing is done over an eight to 10 hour period but allows for longer usage.

“Where CNG really makes sense is on vocational and delivery-type vehicles that go out on a specified route every day and come back to a home base,” Schwab said.

It doesn't currently make sense, he said, for long haul trucks because the infrastructure isn't in place. There are about 1,500 to 1,600 CNG stations in the U.S., and the amount of space and size of tanks needed is larger than for traditional fuel stations.

Schwab said Eaton still finds the market attractive from a couple of perspectives. One is that regions such as Asia-Pacific have higher penetration of CNG use than North America.

“Eaton has a global footprint, where we're selling our products into all different regions,” he said. “So these products will apply in those other regions as well.”

The CNG market only has one or two other manufacturers of CNG hoses, and there is high barrier to entry because of the certification requirements.

“We knew we had the products that would perform in that market,” Schwab said. “As we laid out the business case for it, it really made the decision quite easy for us to make the investment in the product development and the certification.”

Finally, Eaton likes to support green initiatives and believes the alternative fuel market can be financially successful. “We know that oil prices won't stay low forever,” he said. “We anticipate that when oil comes back up, the growth and the strength of this market and the economics are going to come back.”