Create a shortage then raise the price. Repeat ad naseum until you are as rich as Bill Gates if you own a business that involves commodities that the public “has” to have. Its a business strategy thats been around for decades but seems to be used a lot more lately.
Also a very wet corn crop this year...
From the article:
Demand has been boosted by the combination of record freezing weather at the start of this year and a late, wet, record corn harvest last October and November, when large quantities of propane were used to dry out crops.
Well heads can freeze up when it’s extremely cold if your well is producing some water.
Also if the well is producing condensate, when the storage tanks on location are full and you can’t get a truck to haul a load to market because of weather, all you can do is shut the well in or your storage tanks will overflow.
A lot of wells will be shut in before a storm because they don’t know how long it will be before they can haul a load and they don’t want the tanks to overflow.
There really isn’t any way around it.
It is forecast to be in the high 20's for the lows in the next 7 days -- so that will cause more problems in getting production back to normal.
From what I understand, propane is made as a byproduct of gasoline, so there are quite a few refineries in New Jersey as well as along US Gulf of Mexico.
The problem is getting propane to other parts of the country.
We have natural gas pipelines and natural gas storage.
Maybe there needs to be storage somewhere around Saint Louis, MO and Chicago, IL that could handle a very cold spell...
I don't think it's a created shortage. The cold has been brutal with few breaks and weather issues with supply. I don't doubt that the suppliers are taking advantage of the situation.