Sep 19, 2014 3 min read

Bentleyville, a longtime favorite of interstate truckers, is gassing up in a more contemporary way.

Ground was broken Thursday evening for a compressed natural gas/propane refueling station in the borough. It will be at Big Jim’s Plaza, near Holiday Inn Express and Best Western hotels, off Route 917 South and a 90-second drive from Interstate 70,

“This little town will see such an effect,” said Tejas Gosai, who helped to spearhead the drive for this station.

CNG is fueling Marcellus Shale while being fueled by the formation. It is increasingly being used, in lieu of gasoline or diesel, by trucks operating in the oil and gas industry. And CNG is plentiful in the shale.

In essence, it is methane stored at high pressure. Natural gas is safer than other fuels because, if spilled, it is light and disperses quickly.

The station will be built in front of and to the right of the Holiday Inn Express property, and slightly to the left of TruPar America forklifts.

Gosai, whose family owns those hotels, is an entrepreneur who also is chief executive officer of Shale Media Group. He said “a lot of buses,” including the Blue Bird line, and forklifts, operate with propane.

Actually, as several speakers pointed out, installation of the station should include the qualifier “pending permits.” The project has to get proper approvals.

If it does, there should be a fairly quick opening.

“Pending permits, we hope to be open by Thanksgiving, said Bob Beatty, founder and managing partner of O Ring CNG Fuel Systems LP of Zelienople.

Gosai said he and five partners were working on this project for a couple of years and had hoped to have it operational six months ago. But there were delays.

He said O Ring began working on the station last October and finished, and will transport it to Bentleyville by truck. Gosai said CNG stations usually are accompanied by a building, but that will not be the case here.

Beatty, one of the six partners, extolled the benefits of CNG to the region and the nation. He said it is less expensive and less of an environmental threat than other fuels and doesn’t have to be imported.

This is the first CNG station for Gosai, who said he has four other locations planned on Interstates 79 and 376 – “where we own the land and have lease options.”

He considers himself and his father, Kam, as “one” partner in this endeavor. The others are Beatty, Anant Gandhi, Shashi Kumar, Nainesh Desai and Dilip Desai.

The news conference and groundbreaking ceremony did not lack for levity, but just before the shovels dug in, former state Sen. Barry Stout provided the evening’s lightest moment. As he approached in his motorized wheelchair, he told the crowd: “I’d move a lot faster if I had CNG in here.”

He may get it in late November – pending permits.