Upodate On Propane Shortage -- November 5, 2019

Updates

November 9, 2019:

Original Post

Wettest September on record in North Dakota? Propane seems to be the big story in North Dakota right now.

• today, from Reuters: scramble for propane marks Mother Nature's -- this is not global warming -- latest challenge for US farmers --  what little I know -- this was not supposed to happen with global warming -- that was all about droughts
• yesterday: propane shortage the latest challenge for farmers; "energy emergency"; but the story is everywhere -- it looks like there are two stories -- first the propane that is needed by farmers to dry their harvest; and the early winters in the upper midwest, to include Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa. One state governor has declared a "propane emergency." Global warming? Hardly. Apparently propane is becoming an issue for Californians affected by the wildfires. 
• what I find most interesting about this, this shortage was all predicted back as early as July, 2019
• from two days ago:

Propane, two stories:

• back in July, 2019, farmers were warned
• two days ago, propane delivery crisis plagues the midwest
• do you remember this story, from December, 2013? the US propane shortage
• from an earlier post, just a couple of days ago -- 
• RBN Energy: don't bank on a boring propane market this winter.
  

  U.S. propane production has been on the rise for most of 2019, but propane consumption by steam crackers has been reined in by poor economics, and propane exports have been constrained by export-capacity shortfalls. That’s led to a big buildup in propane inventories, which stand at near-record levels as the market prepares for a winter heating season that is forecasted to be milder than normal. So we’re in for only a modest draw on propane stocks between now and spring, right? Not necessarily. There’s change in the air regarding propane supply, cracker demand and export capacity and, as we learned in the balmy winter of 2016-17, the U.S. propane market isn’t nearly as dependent on the weather as it used to be. Today, we assess recent market developments and explains why a big decline in propane stocks is a real possibility.

  Propane is an NGL purity product that has two primary uses: as a fuel (mostly for heating, but also for cooking and crop drying, and occasionally for cars, trucks and buses) or as a feedstock for petrochemical plants (steam crackers to make ethylene, or propane dehydrogenation -- PDH -- plants to make propylene). Propane also has two primary sources of supply: refineries and natural gas processing plants, the latter of which separate out mixed NGLs from natural gas streams. These mixed NGLs from processing plants (also known as y-grade) then are sent to fractionators, where y-grade is divvied up into what are called “purity” products (ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline). The Shale Revolution has enabled the U.S. to produce more than enough propane to meet its own heating and petchem needs, and to become a major exporter of propane.