August Energy Update

Aug 03, 2019


July got a bit on the toasty side. I began writing this letter on July 19th and the temperature outside is 92 and extremely humid. Don’t be lulled into a sense of security by the warm weather. Haven’t you been watching Game of Thrones? Winter is coming. Contract your propane if you haven’t already. Values are still very good. It can’t go below zero but the upside potential can be very high.
If you haven’t had your furnace checked out you may want to call your HVAC company to have that done while the weather is good. HVAC technicians get pretty busy during extremely hot weather and they’re busy all winter after people’s furnaces are turned on for the first time. Beat the rush and have your furnace checked out before the cold weather gets here.
We’re making good headway at most of our branches getting leak tests done. Our technicians have found several leaks inside homes and have come across a few underground propane lines that were repaired by the homeowner or the contractor who cut the line. Please don’t allow a contractor to repair a cut propane line or try to do it yourself. You wouldn’t want our propane technicians repairing your car, so why would you allow someone who is not trained to repair your propane line?
If you have a leak underground the propane can follow the line to the foundation of the house. If there is a crack in the foundation the propane may find its way inside. And you may not be able to smell it because as it moves through the soil the Mercaptan (the stinky stuff they put in propane so you can smell it) may leach out of the propane. There have been cases where this situation has caused fires or explosions. Before you dig, call us a few days in advance. We can mark the propane line so it doesn’t get cut in the first place. Don’t be a statistic.
Since we’re on the subject of safety, now would be a good time to get your trees trimmed back so that our drivers can make it down your driveway without worrying about ripping the mirrors off their trucks this winter. Now is also a great time to identify hazards that our drivers may encounter as they pull the hose to the tank. In the winter these hazards disappear under the snow. Please help us to protect our employees from injury.
I hope you all have a great August. Thank you for your business.

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Jul 02, 2024

Every year, I get fooled by some article on milk pricing and the forecasters predicting the price that we will see in the future. They take on the nearly impossible quest of prediction with the same confidence of the newscaster reading the weather on my tv, and we all know how that went this spring. In February the mailbox price was in the $15 cwt range and now, fast forward to June, we are around $19 cwt. On a 600-cow dairy, that’s about $75,000 a month difference equating to just under a cool million in a year. How does your farm handle this volatility? I don’t think there’s a magic cookie cutter answer in how we manage this, and it appears volatility is here to stay in commodity prices.  

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By the time you receive this newsletter, Independence Day will have gone by. I hope you enjoyed the day off. I should have done this in last month’s newsletter but let me give you some fireworks advice in case you have left over munitions. The most important thing to remember is after you light the fuse, Mr. Fireworks is no longer your friend. Then, while fleeing, don’t zig when you should have zagged. Now you know.