Tanzania plans to have about 300 cars running on a hybrid of petrol and compressed natural gas in Dar es Salaam by March 2009, a senior government petroleum official said on Tuesday. It also plans to build three gas filling stations in the same period. The east African economy has proven natural gas deposits of about 3.3 trillion cubic feet and is trying to use it to blunt the effects of high international fuel prices. "From January to March, we will have built three natural gas filling stations," Joyce Kisamo, senior principal researcher at state-run Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), told Reuters in an interview. "We had targeted 200 customers, but up to now we have 300 customers interested in adapting their vehicles to use compressed natural gas and petrol." Kisamo added that now there were only three vehicles in Tanzania that could run on compressed natural gas and petrol. Tanzania has so far discovered natural gas in four areas. Two - Songo Songo island off the eastern coast and Mnazi Bay in the south east - have gone into commercial production. It is currently using natural gas to generate electricity and power several industries in Dar es Salaam, including, a brewery, a glass and a cement company. Kisamo said that the modifying the vehicles would involve fitting them with a conversion kit - available from countries like Argentina, China and India - into their engines and adding a 16 kg compressed gas tank. These, along with the accompanying electronic monitors would cost about 1 million Tanzania shillings (US$856.1) and the cost could rise to about 1.5 million shillings if one wished to add more than one gas tank. Kisamo said that TPDC had calculated that after nine to 12 months, a private car owner would be saving up to 100,000 shillings in fuel costs. She said so far, there were only four technicians in the country that could fit the conversion kits, and TPDC was working to train more. Another challenge was that for now all modified cars had to be certified by technicians from the company that made the kit. Starting in October TPDC would start directing interested customers to places where they can have their vehicles modified. Kisamo said the gas would cost about 45 percent less than petrol - which now sells for about 1,700 shillings a litre in Dar es Salaam, adding that a 16 kg natural tank running on a 2040 cc engine can run for about 300 km. "We are not re-inventing the wheel. We have seen it working in other countries," Kisamo said as she demonstrated how to fit the conversion kit to a vehicle. (Editing by James Jukwey) Story by George Obulutsa