Mississippi propane prices

Mississippi heats a higher share of its homes with propane than most of the South, much of it in the rural counties away from the coast. Poultry houses in the central part of the state add a brooder load through cold weather. The Dixie pipeline runs across Mississippi carrying Gulf Coast barrels toward the Southeast, and gas processing along the coast puts supply close to hand, so the gallon here is short-hauled rather than trucked across half the country.

The figure above is EIA's weekly survey average for Mississippi, collected from retail dealers during the October to March heating season and published Wednesday afternoons. No survey runs in the warm months, so the last spring reading stands until the fall. EIA also surveys a wholesale price for Mississippi, plotted as the lower line. The distance between the two is the delivered-service stack, and it widens when the rack falls faster than dealers reprice. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey, on five-year estimates, puts propane as the main heating fuel in 9.9% of occupied Mississippi homes, well above the national middle. That is a large block of homes to keep supplied through a cold January.

The regional numbers around this price are Gulf Coast propane prices and Gulf Coast propane stocks, the inventory that has to cover the winter. Turning this price into a fill cost takes a tank size and a gauge reading; the propane usage calculator does that arithmetic and prefills the Mississippi price.