Propane shortage

[B-lou]

There is plenty of propane just not in the midwest.....

 

[baldguy637]

My wife's niece works at amerigas, and warned us last week the prices were going to skyrocket. I ordered 200 gallons Wednesday and it cost me $735! If that wasn't bad enough, just for kicks I called skelgas in Crawfordsville this morning and they said $5.90 a gallon!!! Amerigas is now $5.80.....

 

[singlesix]

My wife's niece works at amerigas, and warned us last week the prices were going to skyrocket. I ordered 200 gallons Wednesday and it cost me $735! If that wasn't bad enough, just for kicks I called skelgas in Crawfordsville this morning and they said $5.90 a gallon!!! Amerigas is now $5.80.....

Makes my 3.49 seem like a steal

 

[lovemachine]

$5.90? Holy crap...

 

[baldguy637]

Makes my 3.49 seem like a steal

I know, right? Yesterday was $3.43, today is $5.80. It would be cheaper to turn off my main, drain my lines and live at an extended stay motel until it warms up.

My furnace has been burning roughly 5.5 gallons a day during this cold snap. At $6 a gallon that equates to $231 a WEEK for LP alone. I can get a hotel for cheaper than that....

 

[Spudgunr]

Sounds like it is time to break out the kerosene heaters at these prices! Propane only has 70 percent the energy content per gallon of kerosene. I can get kero locally for around $4.50 a gallon (which even that isn't a great price), so based on that propane should be less than 4.5X.7 = $3.16. Plus, the kero heater will be near 100 percent efficient, vs running the propane through the furnace (which may be between 75 and 98 percent efficient depending on what you have). You are using 525,000 BTU a day, which is like running a 23,000 BTU kero heater 24 hours a day. Though with a single heater one room will get VERY hot, and the other rooms will be very cold (I'd leave the fan on the heater to KIND of help distribute the heat). With the prices you are paying you would pay for the kero heater VERY quickly.

ETA: Heck, at these prices if you have grill tanks its cheaper to go to the propane exchanges! At these rediculous prices I'd be quarantining off parts of the house, shutting vents, shutting doors to those areas, etc. Actually, I'd also be using electric space/radiant heat. 1 gallon propane is equivalent to 28 KWh. Not sure what rural rates are, but at 25 cents per KWh it is equivalent to $7 a gallon propane. High, yes, but so is that electric rate (in suburbs we are closer to half of that), plus with radiant heat you would be heating the person and not the whole space. A couple of electric blankets, a couple of space heaters, and a couple of radiant space heaters and it should be bearable.

 

[philbert001]

I heat with wood. Haven't lit my Furnace in over 2 years. With all the Emerald Ash borers, all my ash trees are dead or dying! I have enough wood split to last me the winter, and probably another 2 years worth of wood bucked and ready to split. Still have about a dozen Ash trees to take down in the spring.

Our furnace is the only thing I have that uses propane, and last I checked, I have about 300 gallons in the tank.

Got a letter from Ag Plus the other day, saying that unless you are under 15% of a tank, that you won't even go on the delivery list.

...WTT: 200 gallons of propane for your high end firearms! Call me when you are cold enough to consider it!

 

[BigMatt]

At these rediculous prices I'd be quarantining off parts of the house, shutting vents, shutting doors to those areas, etc.

You should do that anyway. We are 2 people in a 3600sf house. There are rooms we don't go in for months at a time.

 

[CountryBoy19]

You must not live in a rural area as the corn was super wet this last fall and a lot of LP was used to dry it down. I could hear the fans running all fall while everyone tryed to dry it down. The grain elevators were rejecting loads as they couldn't get it dryer down fast enough themselves. Now I don't know if I believe that is the true reason for LP shortage as I font believe anything .gov tells me...

The corn crop this year was MUCH dryer than years past (except last year maybe)... the reason loads were being rejected was because of the large yields leading up to the fact that most elevators were 100% full and couldn't take any more until they were able to move corn out on rail/barge etc.

 

[nmcampbe]

Co-Alliance quoted my dad $6.55 per gallon this morning and no more then 150 gallons delivered if you are under 20%. This will drive people away from LP very fast, I being one. Unbelievable.

 

[wolfman]

Biggest problem with the supply of propane is the ability to move it around. Unlike gasoline, propane is highly seasonal, so the equipment to move it around is limited to what can be kept busy in an "average" heating season. Whenever you have one of these unusually cold heating seasons, there isn't enough equipment to move it from the pipeline to retail storage fast enough to keep up with demand. Last time I remember a shortage was back in the early 80's when I had to wait for hours at the pipeline to get loaded. Everyone said the price would drive everyone away from propane then, but it didn't.

 

[bwframe]

Has anyone had a 20# tank filled recently. Wonder if I should hurry or wait?

 

[rkwhyte2]

Has anyone had a 20# tank filled recently. Wonder if I should hurry or wait?

The price yesterday at the Tractor Supply in Westfield was in the high $3 range. I don't remember the exact price. I pay $17.99 for a 20lb tank exchange at Lowes and for that you get 15 lbs of propane. Not the best deal but better than what I'm seeing here in this thread.

 

[Mgderf]

I had a #20 tank filled 2 weeks ago at $15.75.
This was in Lafayette.

 

[nmcampbe]

We know how bad prices are now but what will prices or contract prices for next season be, anyone have a guess? If the rumor they are able to sell it for three times the price overseas is true I can't imagine it being anywhere near a bargain next season unless that market dries up.

 

[BluePig]

I can assure you the shortage is very real. Propane suppliers make their money on margins, allotments and higher prices hurt suppliers and consumers alike.

I was wondering when you were going to chime in on this.
Nice to know you are watching.

 

[wagyu52]

We know how bad prices are now but what will prices or contract prices for next season be, anyone have a guess? If the rumor they are able to sell it for three times the price overseas is true I can't imagine it being anywhere near a bargain next season unless that market dries up.

Prices should go back to normal, we have plenty of propane it's just in the wrong place. The massive price increases are mainly in shipping, once propane is available agin at local terminals the price will go down.
Local terminals still have LP for suppliers that have prepaid, but no extra. This should be a lesson to all the people on LP, LOCK IN YOUR LP PRICE IN THE SUMMER.

 

[wagyu52]

$2.89 on Monday, $3.16 on Tuesday, $3.64 on Wednesday, $4.44 on Thursday, $4.95 on Friday. All with a 200 gallon max. Anybody want to drive a bobtail?

 

[ghuns]

It's hard to drive people away from propane when there aren't any great alternatives. If you can't get natural gas, fuel oil is about your only option.

I installed an outdoor wood boiler in 2009 after spending $2500 on LP in the winter of 2008. It's great If you have access to sh!tloads of woods. But with $6/gallon LP, you could buy a lot of wood and still come out ahead.

Bet there are a lot of mothballed cornburners being fired up this weekend.

 

[sterve]

Got my 200 gal. Max yesterday at a whopping $5.69 a gal.