Here is part of the response I got from Mike Gerhardstein of Propane Liquidators I purchase excess inventory and capacity from retailers and pay them to deliver to you. I am based out of Florida, far from any propane storage facilities. My method allows the retail buyer, like yourself, to purchase overbuys and excess directly from the retailer. I remain the middleman in the transaction but can often secure prices well below what the retailer would be willing to sell to you directly. He would not give me a quote because I told him what I paid for it last year and who I bought it from were nothing he needed to know. I also said how much I used last year is probably not relevant looking at the grain drying prospects.My understanding from what he said is Propane Liquidators has no equipment or facilities. They buy "excess inventory" from local retailers and then have them deliver it locally. I can see lots of problems with this business model. For one thing, I must have enough storage to get through the high demand times because retailers probably won't have "excess inventory" in January. And any good supplier is going to require a system check including a leak test. If they are delivering excess product you can bet they won't be eating that cost. A friend of mine just got an expensive lesson about propane. He owns his own tank and got some really low priced propane from a drop and go supplier. (drop the gas, get the check, and get down the road). The temperature rises, his tank gets hot, and pops the relief valve spewing gas in the middle of town. The short version is he lost about 100 gallons, and had to have his original supplier come in and repair the tank because the drop and go guy couldn't fix it. Oh, and the really low price was the same price his original supplier offered after taking the cash discount. If I get gas from a liquidator I can't imagine my local supplier is going to be very accomodating.
Edited by Mike SE IL 7/23/2012 23:29
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Propane Liquidators
