Propane Inventories Reach Five-Year High, Stabilizes Prices

With California leadership waging war against natural gas usage in the golden state, demand for alternative sources of energy soar.

The traditional correlation between crude oil prices and propane markets has experienced a notable change in recent years driven by supply.

Propane prices and availability hasn’t taken much of the spotlight this year, partially thanks to a warm fall. According to Michael Newland from the Propane Education Research Council, propane inventories are currently at a five-year high.

“So really, I think we're on a supply track, meaning the supply is really what's driving the stability within our fuel. We export 60 plus percent of what we could burn here in the US. We're burning 40, export 60 percent. And what that equates to in gallons is we burn just shy of 10 billion gallons of propane here annually in the US.”

He adds that the industry is actively pursuing innovative avenues, such as propane for vehicles.

“It's an opportunity for us to explain how clean the fuel actually is. So we look at the carbon intensity scores of every fuel out there… Propane is, in my opinion, the cleanest commercially available combustion fuel on the planet.”