april_2018

68 69 THE BENNETT PUMP COMPANY and supports Bennett products in over 90 countries around the world, including component OEM parts used by third party fuel dispenser manufacturers. “We’re famous for our hydraulics,” says Collier,“which are the pumping and metering systems that go into fuel dispensers.There are 30 brand names around the world that buy components from us and integrate them into their dispensers under a different brand name.” From hand-crank barrel pumps, to electrically-driv- en meter pumps, to gravity-feed visible pumps, to sev- eral generations of electronic gasoline dispensers, to pay-at-the-pump options, to alternative fuel dispens- ers, Bennett Pump has always been in the forefront of change.“In the last fifteen to twenty years we have seen the most significant migration to alternatives from the traditional gasoline and diesel fuels,”Collier notes.“So, it’s been an exciting time for us; to be able to build products that are not only revolutionary, but that are dispensing revolutionary fuels.” Collier reports that in North America there are only three primary fuel dispenser manufacturers.While Bennett Pump is not the largest dispenser manufac- turer it continues to gain market share in traditional fuel dispensers–gasoline and diesel - in the U.S. and Canada, and it maintains a very high market share in several alternative fuels–compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), and hydrogen– compared to its two competitors. Collier is cognizant of the challenges inherent in the alternative fuel sector and realizes the correla- tion to oil prices.“Liquefied Natural Gas and Com- pressed Natural Gas are two very good alternatives when oil prices get high,”he explains.“Today, oil prices are about $65 a barrel,which is easily enough to justify to fleets, and independent owners of com- mercial vehicles, and even to the person who wants to change a car to CNG, that the math works, now, to actually spend the money to do that. Because at $65 a barrel, the price at the pump goes up enough so that you can save money and get a good return on your investment if you migrate to an alternative fuel - specifically LNG or CNG.” But,when the price of oil goes down, Collier con- cedes, an investment in those fuels can go bust.“It is risky,”he affirms.“And LNG demonstrated that risk, because a lot of companies who invested in trucks for LNG got burned when oil prices dropped to $29 a barrel. It cost more to buy liquefied natural gas for your truck that you just spent thousands of dollars to convert than it does to buy regular diesel fuel.” Collier goes on to explain that the hydrogen market differs from the natural gas market in several ways. One is that a gasoline vehicle cannot be converted to hydrogen, like it can for CNG.Another is the need to build an entirely new infrastructure for powering hy- JAMES COLLIER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT In fact, we’re the only company in North America that makes a frame-to-finish range of fuel dispensers for alternative fuels, and the result of that has been very good for us.