Diesel trucks out, LNG big rigs in

YUTIAN, Hebei province - On a recent morning in Yutian, a dusty town bisected by the highway that connects Beijing to the sea, Su Meiquan strolled into a dealership packed with hulking trucks and prepared to drive off with a brand new rig.

After years of driving a diesel truck for a trucking company, he had decided to buy his own vehicle - a bright red rig fueled with liquefied natural gas, capable of hauling as much as 40 metric tons of loads including steel or slabs of marble.

Su hopes the LNG truck - less polluting and cheaper to operate than diesel ones - will be the cornerstone of his own business, plying the route to the western fringes of China.