Propane Pain

If you use propane on your farm or ranch for heating or other operations it is certain you have been feeling the pain of propane. Mason Hamilton, analyst with the U.S. Energy Information Administration says the Midwest has been especially hard hit.

HAMILTON: We had the late corn harvest around the first week in November and in that first week in November we saw over two million barrels of propane inventories be withdrawn from storage, which is the highest single week November drawdown of inventory that they EIA has seen since they began collecting that data in 1993.

Hamilton details several factors that have come together to cause the propane shortage problems in the Midwest.

HAMILTON: Shortly thereafter the cold weather hit. We had the onset of some supply disruptions. The Cochin pipeline coming down from Canada went into maintenance and we also saw disruptions of supplying terminals with rail. So after the corn harvest, the available propane supplies that were in these distribution terminals in the midwest were at very low levels.

He talks about one action some states are taking to deal with the shortages.

HAMILTON: We've seen several states around the country and in the midwest particularly issue what are called waiver of service hours so basically propane delivery truck drivers normally have a limitation of the service of hours that they can drive and states have been waiving those in order to ensure that there's always someone driving, making sure that they can get the propane to where it is most needed.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.