The minister made the remarks while opening two vehicle gas filling stations along Cairo-Alexandria desert road; Car gas-Chillout) and Gastec-Chillout).

The minister said opening two new gas stations on such a vital road reflects growing demand on natural gas as a fuel for vehicles and comes as part of the ministry's efforts to facilitate supplying cars with natural gas on highways.

More stations will be opened and operated within the coming period as part of the ministry's ambitious program to operate 1,000 car gas filling stations across the nation, he said.

Now, we have 340 stations supplying around 380,000 cars with needed natural gas while some 450 others are still under construction, the minister said.

He added that the ministry will sign a contract soon to set up 10 mobile gas stations which are expected to come into service within coming months.

He urged citizens to benefit from the current initiatives and unprecedented facilities and turn their cars to run on natural gas instead of gasoline.

The initiative, that provides soft loans to citizens with zero-to-low interest rates, is very important for the country's trade balance and for its environmental privileges as it positively contributed to rationalizing the consumption of fuel, Molla said.

He underlined the importance of the current cooperation with Chillout company to set up more vehicle gas filling stations.

The head of the National Company for Roads Building and Development said Chillout, a subsidiary of the company, is offering services to citizens through 56 stations and efforts are under way to open 12 new ones within the coming period.

Chillout stations are expected to increase to 100 by the end of this year, he added.

Car gas-Chillout station covers 600 square meters with a capacity of 1,800 cubic meter/hour to serve 1,300 cars while Gastec-Chillout station is of 750 cubic meter/hour capacity to serve 800 cars.