PROPANE OR PROFANE?

PROPANE OR PROFANE?

(Kankakee Daily Journal, Canadian Propane)

(Thrifty Propane, Karl Utermohlen, Heritage Foundation)

(Associated Press, Reuters, Sabina Zawadzki, Edward McAllister)

(Houghton Daily Gazette, Kurt Hauglie, Kurt Ludlow, Frazer Chronicle)

There was a headline in yesterdays local newspaper, January 30, 2014 that headlined a sit-down between Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker, and President Barack Obama, that would discuss the savvier propane shortage here in the state. Walker sent a letter to Obama, Wednesday, asking for the president’s help in solving the Badger States shortage.

Propane…..I, of course, had to look the product up, since I know about as much as the average person on the street knows which is pretty much zip. I’m not gonna bore you with a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo that few of us will retain 10 minutes after I’ve written this damn blog, and 15 minutes after you read this piece. Suffice it to say that that there are identifiers, properties, thermochemistry, compounds, supplementary data, and hazards connected with the stuff…..and we are all paying for the technology whenever we buy the gas, or when we pay for a hamburger at our local restaurant where propane is used for the grill.

I did learn something that I didn’t know before I started reading about propane, it is not produced for its own sake,…..rather it’s one of those wonderful by-products of two other processes: natural gas processing and petroleum refining. Producing propane actually is beneficial to the production of natural gas; the gathering of propane reduces problems with the natural gas pipelines.

 

Similarly when oil refineries make major products such as motor gasoline and heating oil, some propane is produced as a by-product. Sadly the by-product that results in the propane by-product means that the volume made available from the natural gas processing and oil refining cannot be adjusted when prices and/or demand for propane fluctuates.

In addition to the natural way that propane is manufactured here in the United States, added demand for the product is met with imports and by stored inventory. About 10% of U.S. propane use is supplied from imports, but this source plays a vital role when consumption exceeds available domestic supplies…..and apparently that’s where we are at today, exceeding domestic supplies.

Propane from outside the United States comes into the country via pipeline and rail tanker car from Canada, and by sea from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Norway and several other countries.

The entire Midwest has been put on alert as cold temperatures continue their attack on the inhabitants that continue to shun vacations during the winter months in Florida, or other warm weather climates…..and I’m one of um, and to be truthful, I can’t figure out why I hang around the upper part of the Midwest.

THE PRICE OF PROPANE IS WHAT

Last summer I brought a 20 pound tank of propane for my handy dandy grill, which lasts an entire year, and it cost me $20. Today that same 20 pound tank of propane is going to cost me an astounding $40, yips, that would hurt.

I lived through the gas shortages back in October 1973, which lasted through March of ’74, and remember much discussing about the exact cause of the problem, which after careful analyses was predicated on the U.S. by the Organization of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OAPEC) who jointly proclaimed an oil embargo chiefly on the United States.

The entire problem and the ensuing debate to identify what had happened boiled down to the fact that the United States supplied Israel with arms, munitions, and other war-making machinery during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israel took on the entire Middle East and won, defeating the belligerent combined forces of Egypt, and Syria, plus the support of Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, Cuba, Morocco, and Tunisia.    

The price of a gallon of gas shot straight through the roof, and the American driver was left in long lines at his favorite filling station holding a limp gas nozzle that only delivered a drip, drip, dripping of gas since that wasn’t any to be had.

There was a lesson to be learned somewhere during those six months, forty years ago, that the U.S. should have learned…..but somehow missed out on. I’m just wondering if this isn’t the same type of situation…..transplanting itself into the 21^st century. I’m wondering who we’ve pissed off lately…..oh wait, approximately 3/4 of the globe, at last count.

I can’t imagine depending on propane for my heating system…..$700 for a fill-up in September, $1,400 for a fill in February, wow, just shoot me, cause I sure as hell couldn’t afford a hit like that, not with me being on a fixed income.

It’s the old bugaboo, the law of supply and demand…..what a fricken joke, people on fixed incomes care little about Capitalism, or the great American rules of economics…..we want a warm house, food in the cupboards and the frig, and decent health insurance DON’T GET ME GOING, these business people care little about the consumer, get their bottom line.

PROPANE IS PROFANE

It’s like rubber for tires, or food for consumption, or the semi-annual visit to my doctor, just the simple things in life, not one of them is earth shaking, just common necessities. Old farts don’t want to encroach on anybody or anything, we’re not a threat and nobody to be afraid of, we’ve paid our dues, put in our times, and now, in the twilight of our lives, we only want peace.

You Capitals of Industry are more than welcome to take the lion’s share of…..everything, just leave us old folks alone, to idly away the days, weeks and months as we wait for our ultimate reward…..death, and the chance to become warm food, I can hardly wait.

However, if this propane scare and price escalation continues, I’m liable to be forced out of retirement…..you see I am a partial owner an 1/8 section of ground smack dab in the middle of an oil and gas field, surrounded by producing wells, and I’m not too old to still want my share of the old $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. I can still spend money with the best of um, and maybe I’ll have-ta get those Wildcatters to working on my propane.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!