Pellet producers offer insight (today)

[boo boo]

Few interesting things in this article posted today
I see a lot of debatable issues in their responses

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles...-offer-insight-on-undefinedshortageundefined/

 

[iron stove]

Basically, its just like the SALT shortage. As us Pigs say, buy early, buy often. Oink Oink .

 

[PoopieBritches]

Sound like politicians, "not OUR fault". LOL I guess I'm a fool for not picking up a crystal ball at Walmart. If I had, I would have known this was gonna be the coldest winter in like a hundred years. Shame on us all for not having the loot, (and crystal ball) laying around to pick up 2 times our usual needs(during the summer like we're "sposed" to).
So, if there is no "shortage", then why don't any of the suppliers have pellets? The ones that do, are limiting quantities.
Oh, I get it. They're controlling the distribution to drive up the prices. Haven't I seen this somewhere before...?

 

[Scott M]

Thanks for the link.

 

[RKS130]

Few interesting things in this article posted today
I see a lot of debatable issues in their responses

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles...-offer-insight-on-undefinedshortageundefined/

Seems to me that this shortage is cyclical, just like any other seasonal product. I have noticed, for example, that the guy I always get my Christmas trees from has different volume year to year. One year he buys a lot and gets stuck with a bunch of them, for whatever reason, like lots of rain on the weekends or some such, so the following few years he buys fewer trees. That results in a "shortage" for a year or so, but when he sees that he is selling out for a couple of years he increases his volume again, little by little, till he ends up with leftover trees again, and cuts back. And so the cycle goes.

Obviously the increased pellet demand this year, especially here in the Northeast, caught some sellers by surprise. This is true even though my local HD brought in vastly larger amounts of pellets this year than last, and last year more than the year before. I just don't think there is much to the shortage issue. Those of us who can, both financially and vis-a-vis storage space, will continue to buy all we think we will need in advance; some of us will buy what we can and fill in later; and from time to time some of us will get caught short and have to rely on some less desirable source of heat. I think that is just part of life. I just started my final ton of FSUs and hopefully will make it to warmer weather.

 

[scajjr2]

A lot of missing info in that article. Like if the plants were only running at 50-60% before are they close to 100% now? If so shouldn't there be a more pellets being shipped right now?

And the part about the media caused more mills/plants to be made. When? who would invest in building a pellet mill w/o doing their homework? I've no idea but I'm sure it's not a cheap undertaking.

Sam

 

[tjnamtiw]

Sound like politicians, "not OUR fault". LOL I guess I'm a fool for not picking up a crystal ball at Walmart. If I had, I would have known this was gonna be the coldest winter in like a hundred years. .?

If you had gotten your crystal ball from WalMart, you would NOT have known about the cold winter because the warning from the crystal ball would have been in CHINESE!

 

[Bioburner]

If you had gotten your crystal ball from WalMart, you would NOT have known about the cold winter because the warning from the crystal ball would have been in CHINESE!

And probably defective too.

 

[boo boo]

This is the one that got me. The store I buy from did not stock until late September

"The real issue is that consumers began buying too late this year, from Kahn’s perspective. “It’s been easy to blame the big boxes [retailers], and ask ‘why don’t you have more?”, but it’s a chicken and egg scenario. If more consumers had gone to the stores to make purchases in July and August like they have in previous seasons, then eventually, Home Depot, Lowes, or Wal-Mart would have gotten the message"

 

[Bioburner]

HD here did not stock till late September either. The farm store had a early sale on the Premium pellets in mid September so I pulled the trigger and bought 4 tons and just covered them till we moved them into basement in October when it cooled down. Hard to buy if they don't stock. The heating season is longer than the Christmas holiday. If Walmart brought up some decent product maybe they would sell some too.