Brilliance Auto eyes Egypt’s microbus natgas conversion scheme: Chinese car manufacturer Brilliance Auto Group is in talks with its parent company, HuaChen Group Auto Holding, about potentially participating in Egypt’s microbus natural gas conversion scheme, said General Manager Khaled Saad without giving further details, according to Al Mal. Brilliance and HuaChen are looking at the resources they would be able to commit to the conversion project. Brilliance already manufactures the X30 microbus model, which runs on natural gas, and has said it could also consider manufacturing passenger cars that run exclusively on natural gas.

Who else is going with natgas? Brilliance would join others like Toyota, which struck an agreement with the Arab Organization for Industrialization late last year to manufacture 240k nat-gas minibuses, and agreed this year to convert its entire 100k microbus fleet in Egypt to nat-gas in the coming four to six years.

Background: The scheme comes as part of an ambitious EGP multi-bn government plan announced earlier this year to replace as many as 240k microbuses, and convert up to 147k to run on natural gas, and to offer incentives to private vehicle owners to do the same. The conversion scheme would run its first phase in seven governorates including Cairo, before expanding nationwide.