BANGKOK, THAILAND - IN A bid to deal with rocketing fuel prices and cut pollution, Thailand's cabinet on Tuesday approved the leasing of 6,000 public buses for Bangkok that will run on natural gas.

The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) will sell its rickety fleet of 3,535 non air-conditioned buses, and aims to lease 3,000 natural gas vehicles in the next few months and have them plying the streets by May 2009.

A second batch of buses will be rolled out by September 2010, the cabinet said in a statement, and the new fleet will be deployed on 145 routes across the capital and its suburbs.

With the new fleet, the BMTA estimates its fuel costs per bus per day will drop from 3,949 baht (S$161.75) to 2,011 baht.

'It will help the BMTA save fuel expenses and it will benefit the BMTA in the long term,' the cabinet statement said.

Bangkok is a city known for congested streets but air quality has improved in the past few years as the taxi fleet was forced to switch to natural gas and a new light rail system was built.

Benchmark global crude prices stormed past the 100-dollar mark for the first time at the start of the year, reaching a record 138 dollars this month.

In Thailand, prices for premium petrol hit a record high of 40.09 baht per litre on June 4, up from 32.89 baht at the start of the year. -- AFP