Cummins calls CNG clean-burning, then lists water, oil, detonation, derates and corrosion before producing a gas distributor as its reassuring witness.
Cummins has published another natural-gas sermon. Of course it has.
On 10 August, the company promoted a fuel-system upgrade for its 19-litre KTA19GCE gas-compression engine. On 11 August, TCAP published Cummins PR Reactive Mode. Then, on 12 August, Cummins placed How Natural Gas Fuel Quality Affects CNG Truck Engines across its regional newsrooms.
That chronology does not prove Cummins reacted to TCAP. The article may have been scheduled for weeks.
The timing is still fucking exquisite.
Better still, the opening sentence calls natural gas a “low-cost, clean-burning fuel”. Cummins then spends the article explaining how customers should remove water and oil, drain filters, watch for hydrogen sulphide, listen for engine knock, avoid derates and protect fuel systems and spark plugs from corrosion.
Clean-burning, provided you keep an eye on the water, oil, ethane, propane, butane, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur, carbon monoxide, halogens and siloxanes.
Lovely fuel.
Bring a laboratory.
Cummins Natural Gas Fuel Quality Eats Its Own Headline
Fuel-quality guidance is useful. Gas composition varies, contaminants can damage equipment and fleets should maintain filters properly. TCAP does not need to pretend otherwise.
The comedy comes from Cummins attaching the clean-burning halo before opening the cupboard containing the knock sensors and corrosion warnings.
According to the article, drivers should drain truck fuel filters every time they fill up. Too much ethane can cause engine knock or detonation. Nitrogen can slow combustion. Propane and heavier hydrocarbons can trigger fault codes or a derate. Meanwhile, siloxanes may corrode the fuel system and kill spark plugs.
None of that makes CNG uniquely defective. Diesel and petrol also require standards and maintenance.
It does make “clean-burning” look like an adjective that wandered into the wrong fucking article.
Clean-Burning Meets The Full Methane Ledger
Natural gas can reduce some pollutants and may offer greenhouse-gas benefits over diesel in particular vehicles and duty cycles. However, the US Department of Energy says heavy-duty natural-gas vehicles generally provide only small-to-moderate lifecycle greenhouse-gas reductions, depending on fuel economy and upstream and vehicle methane leakage.
Cummins discusses methane number, the measure used to assess resistance to engine knock.
It does not discuss methane leakage.
One protects the engine. The other complicates the pitch.
Cummins also says its engines require a lower heating value of at least 19,000 BTU.
Nineteen thousand BTU per what?
Its own B6.7N guide gives the requirement as 19,000 BTU per pound mass. The newsroom dropped the denominator and left the measurement floating loose like an engineer’s severed thumb.
It is a small error. It is also a beautifully stupid error in an article teaching customers about precise fuel specifications.
The engine requires engineering standards.
The content mill accepts vibes.
Certarus Is Not An Independent Witness
Halfway through, Cummins produces Certarus as evidence that the X15N can match diesel performance.
Certarus compresses gas, loads it into trailers at pressures of up to 4,000 PSI and transports it to customers. Its senior renewable-natural-gas commercial manager says drivers compared X15N trucks with diesel vehicles and found the performance comparable.
Useful feedback, perhaps.
What Cummins does not explain is that Certarus sells the fucking gas.
Certarus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Superior Plus Corp., the publicly traded North American distributor of propane, compressed natural gas and renewable natural gas. More CNG trucks mean more customers requiring compression, transport, storage and fuel delivery.
That does not make the testimonial false. It makes the missing commercial context important.
Asking Certarus whether natural-gas trucks perform well is like asking a brewery whether the neighbourhood needs another pub.
Six Days Earlier, Certarus Opened The Gas Tap
The timing makes the omission even better.
On 6 August 2026, only six days before Cummins published this article, Certarus launched Mobile CNG Fleet Fueling, a managed service delivering CNG and RNG directly to fleet yards.
Certarus said the service would reduce barriers to natural-gas vehicle adoption, help fleets adopt natural-gas trucks faster and grow the market for natural gas as a transport fuel. It also announced a new Houston hub and a two-year agreement to fuel about 100 Class 8 natural-gas trucks for an unnamed global logistics company.
Furthermore, Certarus said it was converting its own tractor fleet to natural gas.
Six days later, Cummins introduced Certarus as the reassuring customer witness without mentioning that it had just launched a business designed to get more of those trucks fuelled.
There is no evidence of a secret coordinated campaign. None is required.
The commercial alignment sits in plain sight. Cummins needs more gas engines on the road. Certarus needs more trucks drinking gas. One sells the hardware; the other arrives with the nozzle.
Everybody in the testimonial has skin in the game and an invoice in the printer.
Hydrogen Is Green Until The Engine Objects
The finest self-own arrives near the end.
Cummins says hydrogen may be added to natural gas in an effort to decarbonise it. Then the company says it is “not fans” of high concentrations because hydrogen is not good for its natural-gas engines.
Technically, that can be reasonable. Hydrogen changes combustion, and concentration and application matter.
Corporate memory still makes it funny.
In 2020, Cummins celebrated its Enbridge hydrogen-blending project as bringing “greener natural gas” to Ontario and helping build the hydrogen economy. That pilot involved up to two per cent hydrogen for residential customers, not high concentrations inside an X15N.
The applications differ. The corporate shape remains perfect.
Hydrogen in an electrolyser story is innovation. Hydrogen in a gas-network press release is planetary kindness. Hydrogen near a Cummins natural-gas engine is watched suspiciously because it might upset the product and increase the fuel bill.
Decarbonisation is welcome.
Just keep it within the warranty limits.
Europe Gets America’s Gas Homework
Cummins published the article on its European newsroom despite the content being almost entirely North American.
It discusses US supplies, the United States, Canada and Mexico, American testing standards, miles, pounds, PSI, BTU and diesel-gallon equivalents. Certarus operates a North American virtual pipeline.
There is nothing wrong with making American material available globally. Stapling /en-eu/ onto it without European units, suppliers or market context is not localisation.
It is a global CMS vomiting the same content into different bowls.
Cummins gets another indexed page. Europe gets American sales copy wearing a local URL like a stolen passport. TCAP gets another exhibit for Reactive Mode.
Clean-Burning Until It Knocks
Cummins wanted a helpful article about natural-gas fuel quality. Instead, it produced a miniature model of the commercial machine.
The opening adjective says clean. The body says water, oil, knock, detonation, derate, corrosion and spark-plug failure. The technical specification loses its denominator. The European page speaks fluent American trucking.
Then Certarus walks in as the reassuring customer, six days after launching a service designed to accelerate natural-gas truck adoption.
None of this proves the X15N is a bad engine or that Certarus fabricated its drivers’ experience. It proves that Cummins’ newsroom is not a neutral classroom. It is the front window of an ecosystem in which every lesson ends with another reason to buy, fuel, service or preserve a Cummins combustion product.
Clean-burning until it knocks.
Hydrogen-friendly until the engine objects.
Independent customer evidence supplied by the company opening the gas station.
Another corporate narrative dismantled using the fucking maintenance instructions.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Cummins – How Natural Gas Fuel Quality Affects CNG Truck Engines
- Certarus – Mobile CNG Fleet Fueling Launch And Houston Hub
- Certarus – Mobile CNG Fleet Fueling Service
- Superior Plus – 2025 Annual Report
- US Department Of Energy – Natural Gas Vehicle Emissions
- US EPA – An Overview Of Renewable Natural Gas From Biogas
- Cummins – B6.7N Maintenance And Operation Quick Reference Guide
- Cummins – Cummins-Enbridge Hydrogen-Blending Project
- Cummins – X15N Integrated Powertrain
- TCAP – Cummins PR Reactive Mode
- TCAP – Cummins Disability Inclusion Award And KTA19 Gas Compressor
- TCAP – Zombie Brake Shoes, Gas Engine Fairy Tales And The Same Old Fossil Machine