Propane Industry Urging Customers To Start Thinking About Winter Now

Alex Dierckman

Summer isn’t over yet, but propane industry officials say it’s already time to start thinking about propane supplies for the coming winter.

The frigid winter that struck most of the Midwest last December and January made propane delivery difficult and pushed prices to new highs.So the Propane Education and Research Council hopes a campaign launched this week will teach consumers how to most efficiently conserve their propane and coordinate with their propane retailer before winter begins.

Council President and CEO Roy Willis says the time to fill up propane tanks is now.

“This campaign to get consumers to fill up their tank is really the best insurance policy to insure that consumers not only have the fuel they use but also have it at an affordable price,” Willis said.

Last year, farmers used almost four times as much propane to dry out their crops than they did the year before — which was a drought year. And this year, the United States Department of Agriculture estimates farmers will harvest a record 14 billion bushels of corn. Willis says that could cause another season of extremely high demand for propane.

“I think the years of very light crop drying probably made both farmers and propane suppliers somewhat complacent, if you will, in terms of stockpiling," Willis said. "We learned our lesson last year and everybody is moving to prepare for this winter.”

Willis says the industry has made substantial investments in storage, additional rail cars and trucking assets to get the propane where it needs to go.