when does propane/butane start picking up ?

hi
when does propane and butane season start moving (usually) thx
sorry double posted

 

1st time it gets cold in about 2 or 3mo

 

Late summer early fall, demand for corn dryers and people starting to reach for the thermostats wanting heat instead of air conditioning.

 

Mid to late September

 

October/November. Depending on location and temperature

 

Propane picks up when it gets cold. Butane starts picking up when the refineries go into blending season, which is when they start producing winter-spec fuels.

 

Propane/Pressurized gas delivery. How does it stack up against, say gasoline? Even in the midst of all the craziness going on, I'm thinking about making a jump again. Get back into day-cabs or something with little contact with others. Current milk haul is alright, but definitely feel I could do better after eight years of tanker.

 

I was working steady and hard this spring when all the fuel guys were sitting home, but that was an unusual situation. Some fuel guys who knew how to do propane were working with spare trailers when it got busy.

I'd had fuel companies calling me about hiring, that stopped dead with COVID. Now they're back working but not hiring especially. Some of our guys were long-time fuel haulers and they've said they'd never go back.

Propane transport is seasonal in most locations, or they run ammonia in those same trailers for ag during warm months if in an ag area, or they have flatbeds or reefers for the summer.

The warmer the locale the shorter the season, unless there are altitude diffs to lengthen it in certain spots not too far away, like supplying the White Mountains from Phoenix, or an industry uses it year-round.

If you want a change of scene, you'll likely find more work further north. Reed Hurst runs out of Cortez toward AZ somewhere doing CO2, for example, dunno if they need anyone. I never see propane work in the ABQ craigslist, but in Farmington there's a company that might hire and train on propane, and another that sometimes hires for helium if you want to be a regular on Wolf Creek Pass.

You could get into bobtail delivery first to learn how it works, that could be local. Propane has a kind of voodoo about how it handles: It's so good at going from vapor to liquid and back that it can be used in automotive A/C units instead of Freon, works better but does have that highly-flammable drawback. So you need to learn the relationship between pressure and temperature (and weight if you cross scales).

All pressurised gas work is subject to market conditions, so sometimes companies will buy loads far away and not care about what it costs to transport.

Personally I think you're a dairy lifer by now. :^)

 

Sounds kind of jumpy. So I'll look at truck stop fuel and whatever other HAZMAT Tank positions there are out there that could keep me busy. I was doing local work for a bit, but having to pick up a few, regional over-nighters during the week has me leery. I only stay out 2-3 nights at a time since that's about all I could mentally handle in such a small space.

That said, dairy haul work is alright as long as you're not on the loading side and getting 6-7 barns dumped on you a night. New Mexico has been great, but I've actually been looking at getting out towards Nevada and doing hauls back and forth along the lonely roads out there. Once I cross over into Texas out here, almost all roads are like extroverted night-clubs.

 

I've seen LTL linehaul running US 50 across Nevada, about as empty as you can get. And yeah, I'd like that as well.

Texas sucks, would be better without the people that live there. But then they'd live somewhere else.