What your peers are saying about propane supply

November 4, 2024 By Brian Richesson

Each year at the LP Gas Growth Summit, we ask propane retailers about the supply picture in their region of the country and the strategies they use in their operations.

Here’s how we word the question: Can you tell us about the state of propane supply in your region and how your company works to keep your customers supplied throughout the year?

In this week’s Trader’s Corner, we’re sharing retailer responses from our 2024 event – so you can learn more about how your propane peers approach propane supply strategies within their own operations.

“We’ve built relationships with multiple suppliers. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Doing that, we have not had an issue as far as supply. We just added two transports to our fleet. We can’t haul all our propane, but we know we have somebody in line. When the weather gets bad or something happens and there’s a state of emergency, whatever it might be, we have trucks in line to make sure we’re getting product.” – Andy Stewart, Advanced Propane, Lebanon, Tennessee

“We have an amazing supply team based out of Houston that’s fantastic at communication, letting us know trends in the market and what issues are going on and what we need to do to be ahead of the curve on anything that may come up. It takes a village. With such a large company, you really have to have that.” – Jennifer Jackson, AmeriGas

“We’ve got a company we work with that helps with our forecasting and making sure that we have access to the propane as we need it throughout the year based on our customers’ usage.” – Stephanie Ulam, Berkeley Propane, Moncks Corner, South Carolina

“Fortunately, the state of supply is wonderful, probably better than it’s been in a lot of years. We thankfully work with suppliers that I don’t feel that sense of anxiety. It’s going to be there whenever we place those orders. We have great working relationships with the people who supply us. As far as keeping our customers satisfied and supplied, we work hard to do that. Customer service is one of the things that we focus on, in addition to safety, the most. We [have] that communication with them to make sure hopefully they understand, if their usage is changing … we’re able to communicate with them and meet their needs. When we gain a customer, it’s not just they’re gaining a propane supplier; they’re becoming part of the Cumberland family.” – Katherine Dixon, Cumberland Gas, Kingsland, Georgia

“We’re very fortunate in the fact that we’re only about an hour from Mont Belvieu. Supply is usually pretty good. That being said, we pretty much doubled the size of our storage capacity, in both our Houston and Waller offices, to make sure, in the worst-case event, we have plenty of supply on hand and to give us peace of mind and flexibility.” – Brian Green, Green’s Blue Flame Gas, Houston

“We do all of our internal transportation. At our Gaylord office, we have 78,000 gallons of storage capacity. We have satellite tanks around the area. So, we have plenty of storage. We just purchased a new propane trailer that hauls 20,975 gallons, so we have plenty of infrastructure and capacity to not only haul but to keep in supply.” – Neal Gray, Johnson Oil, Gaylord, Michigan

“The supply is very good. We have lots of options, lots of vendors calling on us. We’ve added more storage this year, added a couple 90s, trying to get storage and have that optimum use and the availability for the winter – if we ever have a winter again. The last two winters have been kind of mild. We’re continuing to build for that future and to be more reliable and not to have that [winter of] ’13-14 issue, if it arises.” – Joe Hart, Mercer Landmark, Coldwater, Ohio

“We’re in a very good location – we have a couple refineries right down the road. The supply for us is pretty simple. To make sure our customers are covered, we have about a half-million gallons worth of storage now.” – John Hutchison, Prism Propane, North Baltimore, Ohio

“We use many different rail systems or spurs. We use some of the pipeline. We don’t put all of our eggs in one basket. With that being said, we travel outside of the state sometimes when supply gets tight. We’ve never had an issue since we’ve spread out our supply-gathering places.” – Tim Rahn, Rahn’s Oil & Propane, Melrose, Minnesota

“Our supply generally comes through rail. We’re not very close to any type of pipeline. We’re not close to the Marcellus areas of the region. We have to work closely with our suppliers to make sure those rail cars are in the terminal where we pick it up. That way we can have that supply for our customers. The residential customers in Virginia want reliability, low cost and good heat. Working with the suppliers to make sure those cars are there so we can get the product is huge. We have some very good partnerships with those wholesalers.” – Josh Stephens, Rockingham Petroleum Cooperative, Harrisonburg, Virginia

“We’ve never had a supply issue in my area based off of the supplier that I have – Sacramento Energy [Resources]. The Johnson family has been real good as far as supplying the state with propane. With the growth they’ve had in the area and putting a propane facility within 100 miles, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has kept us in northern New Mexico supplied with propane for a number of years. That has not been a concern as a smaller company.” – Billy Romero, Romero’s Rio Grande Propane, Taos, New Mexico

“The supply is somewhat constrained in that the suppliers don’t want to let us get the supply we need. We’re on the Mississippi, so they’d rather barge it or train it off rather than sell it to us. It’s been difficult. Being small, we don’t haul our own gas in, so we have suppliers that bring it for us; they’ve been great to work with. They’ve been good about getting that product in a timely manner. We’ve had the same issues for many years, so we’ve learned how to deal with it, when to order gas, make sure we have our storages full. The advantage of having tank monitors is then we know what product needs to go out and how fast it goes out, so our customers are never on the bottom half of their tank. If there are those supply constraints, we know at what point we can slow down our hauling so we can build up our supply.” – Jeff Helle, Suhre’s Gas, Hamel, Illinois

“Propane supply in our region is pretty stable. We’ve diversified our supply between rail, pipeline and trucking, and we work with some pretty solid suppliers.” – Bruce Spiridonoff, Tevis Energy, Westminster, Maryland

“We work with a couple different vendors. For us in Florida, we’re fortunate to have a couple different depots to pull from. As of late, we’ve had no major struggles, which I’m grateful for. We have our own transport as well. That is fantastic because if we’re ever in a bind we can have one of our drivers hop in that semi, get us some gas and keep us going.” – Kristen Williams, Thermotane Propane, Sanford, Florida

“Up in Montana, we haven’t had a supply problem because we have the refinery in Laurel, which supplies a lot of the propane up there, and Canada. A lot of our [propane] comes by rail from either Laurel or Canada. The [supplier] told me, ‘We like you; we like what you’re about. You don’t need to worry about not getting gas.’ I built a good relationship with them. I’ve never had a problem.” – Dennis James, Vintage Propane, Townsend, Montana

“Sometimes one supplier is not enough, not even for a small company. Everybody can have supply problems; it doesn’t matter how big you are or how small you are. My job has been implementing new companies to make sure we have plenty of supply for my customers because I guarantee my keep-full customers stay full. That’s my job – to keep them and their families warm and cooking.” – Larry Hearn, Yellow Rose Propane, Cleburne, Texas