PADD 1A (New England) propane stocks

New England is the smallest of the three East Coast storage areas this site tracks and the furthest from the Gulf Coast pipelines that carry most of the country's propane. Supply here leans on marine imports, rail and truck moving out of coastal terminals rather than on a direct trunk pipeline, since the interstate network reaches the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast more directly than it reaches New England. Propane also competes here with heating oil as a home heating fuel more than it does in most other regions. Stocks still build through the summer and draw down through the colder months, but on a smaller storage base than the rest of the East Coast, so New England's five-year band is worth watching closely as the heating season runs; a reading below it points to a tighter local cushion than usual.

The storage base here is small enough that the weekly print moves on events that would round to nothing in the national number: a delayed cargo, or a terminal down for maintenance in a cold week. EIA counts propane and propylene in primary storage, meaning terminal and bulk tankage rather than the tanks dealers and households keep, and reports it in thousand barrels in the Weekly Petroleum Status Report each Wednesday for the week that ended the previous Friday. What matters for winter prices is where this line sits entering October. A New England season that opens below the five-year band leaves less room for error in January, when replacement barrels have to come up the coast or over the road rather than out of a nearby cavern.