BARSTOW • In an attempt to make its liquefied and compressed natural gas plant turn a profit, the City of Barstow is seeking a manager who would promote the station in order to attract more business.

The facility operated at a loss of about $180,460 during the 2008-2009 fiscal year. The facility lost about $226,540 the previous year. In its request for proposals, the city is requiring that candidates submit strategies on how they would reduce losses at the plant and make it profitable. Three members of the City Council approved the request for proposals. Councilman Tim Saenz and Mayor Pro Tem Julie Hackbarth-McIntyre were absent.

The city would still own the plant and contract with the manager to operate it, said Jeanette Hayhurst, Barstow’s community services director. The manager would also pay for the plant’s expenses. Hayhurst said manager’s compensation would have to be negotiated for at a later date.

The city built the plant in 2005 with a grant from the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District and began operating it in 2006. It is part of the Interstate Clean Transportation Corridor, a nationwide effort to get diesel-burning tractor trailers to switch to liquefied and compressed natural gas.

A handful of city vehicles, transit buses and Barstow’s waste collector fuel up at the LNG plant, but the plant hasn’t attracted enough business to be profitable. If liquefied natural gas isn’t used fast enough it has to be vented out, said Erik Neandross, CEO of Gladstein Neandross and Associates, a Santa Monica-based consultant used by Barstow.

Neandross said soon Barstow’s natural gas plant will be part of a network of facilities between Ontario and Salt Lake City. The United Parcel Service received $11.3 million in federal stimulus funds to purchase 150 tractor trailers fueled by liquefied natural gas. The money will also build three more LNG stations in Las Vegas, Beaver, Utah and Salt Lake City, he said.

“The combination of those three plus the Barstow station and the existing station at the UPS facility in Ontario will provide a network,” he said. “The last piece that the ICTC needs to work on is to connect Reno, Sacramento and Salt Lake City across (Interstate) 80.”

Candidates have until April 30 to submit proposals to manage Barstow’s LNG facility, Hayhurst said

Buck