Pressure by the Trump Administration on OPEC to increase production has resulted in a reduction in oil prices. Many of you probably have noticed that gas prices have started to come down below 3 dollars per gallon. This has helped stabilize propane prices throughout the country. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the Northwest. A natural gas explosion on a pipeline in Canada has forced the refineries in Washington to switch from burning natural gas to burning propane. We do not have any refineries in the state of Oregon so many of the propane companies in this area truck gas down from the refineries in Anacortes Washington. The price postings at the refineries in Anacortes saw a 20cent increase in the month of November. Fortunately, McMinnville Gas has a rail terminal which allows us to by gas from the refineries in Canada so we have not had to raise our prices yet. Demand has not skyrocketed yet throughout the country so supply is good for the time being. We will see what happens if a polar vortex hits the mid-west and exports stay high. We could have some price increases coming, but we will keep our finger crossed. The pipe line in Canada will not be up and running for another 6 months so the supply will be low in Washington all winter and the price will remain high.
Make sure if you have a gate that we have the proper code or a key, so we don’t have to skip filling you on our route. It never fails that every winter some customer changes the gate code and doesn’t notify us he gets skipped and he runs out of propane. I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and a great new year. Thanks for all your business in 2018.
Sincerely,
John Buller and sons