Well, I was considering getting a couple of tons of pellets for a pellet stove that I plan to install in my basement... Ya know, like getting 3 years ahead? Anyway, perhaps last year's shortage coupled with this run on pellet prices will put a few quality used stoves on the market for a good price!! Guess I'll stick with wood for now..
Get the stove now, Many will be on CL and prolly go cheap!! Then when it settles down. You can continue with the plan. Keep that wood stove JIC pellets hit the chit again. Its all about having options in this game!!
"Got Pellets??" That is the what most of my dealers get asked first thing when they now answer the phone....so do most other dealers at this point as well and even the boxes have raised their prices already. Many decent sized pellet houses are either empty or working off of fumes and sad but true, even some of the very largest dealers of pellets in NE are starting to show some holes and running very low....almost never happens....but here we are middle of Oct. The boxes are raising their price ... 1. Because they can and make a couple of more bucks, but more importantantly.. 2. Raising prices will slow down sales and they realize they don't have enough stock to satisfy demand, so the only way to slow it down is to raise prices. This is pretty fundamental business 101 and certainly found to be true in many other industries as well...housing, gasoline, food, entertainment etc...it happens everyday. Someone mentioned that the boxes have started to buy some softies but didn't think they would be selling them in NE cause people in NE don't buy softwood....really?.....well I do, in 3 different types...so does, Vermont, LG, LaCrete, North Country, Trebio and the list goes on and on. When there is nothing else available ...you can pretty much sell anything that burns at that point. I'm 4 years past having to explain to anyone why softwood pellets are every bit as good as any hardwood pellets and the NE market is long past that discussion.....our sales prove that pretty convincingly. Somebody else mentioned driving by Royal Fireside in Mendon this week and seeing a bunch of pellets in the yard...or their local Home Depot or Lowes or Squiers.. (fill in your favorite pellet place)... I can't speak to HD or Lowes, but I have a pretty good idea what is going on at Royal Fireside and I can tell with 100% accuracy that they may have pellets in the yard...but they are SOLD SOLD SOLD and either waiting to get delivered or waiting for pick up....trust me on this...if they or many other dealers could get they hands on a fast 500-1000 tons right now...they would take them in a heartbeat.... Will the lower cost of heating fuel drive some people away from using their pellet stove this year and go with something else... Sure a few I guess.....but with the increase across the board in stove sales, better economy for others, there is still plenty of strong demand. And someone suggested that natural gas is making big inroads...which it is...but still is decades away from being the common fuel choice for the vast majority of customers in rural New England, NY, NJ, PA....pellet sales are very healthy, right now and for probably the next handful of years to come. You can argue with me all you want on that point, but sales and the solid order files gives me plenty of facts to back that up. Not just in NE or North America, but around the world...money chases return and if it is across town or across the world, it will satisfy whoever is willing to pay the best price.....again business 101. I really don't want to sound like your mother here, but you want to eliminate this running around like a chicken with its head cut off this time of year looking for your favorite brand of pellets.....then do this in the summer and stop this nonsense each year. Get off your butt and clean out the garage in June and fill er up....so what if the car has to be outside or the boat or all that crap you have been collecting for 8 years that you never use....beat the crowds, have some peace of mind and pick and choose whatever brand you want....instead of making 23 phone calls right now only to find out Lousyweather can't do a delivery for you till the middle part of December.....a little planning will go along way to relieve your stress levels this time of year if you would just move your pellet purchases up a couple of months....try it next year...it's actually very easy to do..... So again.....Got Pellets?
So you are saying everyone should have bought pellets earlier, yet there is no supply today and the mills are on fumes. The same bottle neck would have just occured sooner if everyone bought earlier. There is really no way around it if the mills cannot produceenough product. It's either produce more or use less.
Besides Krooser, Most of us here are full or over full. We paid attention to the forecasters and have plenty. I'm gonna feel bad if I put in an extra ton and don't actually need it. While some poor SOB is left short! With oil crashing (election year). I have heard some are just going to burn the juice and not ride the pellet wheel this season. Might be big oils way of getting some of the burners back? This season is shaping up to be like 08 all over again. Keep an eye on CL, Should be some deals on the pellet eaters to be had!!
Big oil couldn't care less about pellet burners...in the big picture you aren't even on their radar yet..... Let me put it like this....I'm a gas station and I can pump 10,000 gallons of fuel a week....but I can't do it all on Monday afternoon.... Everyone of my dealers had plenty of stock all thru the summer and most could get just about all they wanted....some really loaded up and some didn't order anything till mid Sept and got caught short.... Yes there is more supply needed probably for how fast the market is growing, but don't kid yourself...you just don't throw up a new pellet mill overnight....ask Vermont Wood Pellets about that....so the early bird gets the worm. No the same bottleneck won't happen is more people would spread out the demand.....there are plenty of dealers not near as busy in the late spring/summer months that can and will deliver farther out and can do it much quicker (like the next day in some cases) instead of 5, 6, 7 or more weeks now....way too many people procrastinate and then wonder why they can't get instant service....
You said the mills including yourself cannot keep up.......did the mills slow down any time in the last six months besides prvevntative maintenance? Sounds like by all accounts everyone has been go full tilt since last winter. If mills have not been going full tilt then they misread the market, shame on them. I am interestered to see what the supply looks like come December, I have a feeling a LOT more people early bought this year causing a temporary shortage. Of course I am fully stocked in the event that is not the case.
This doesn't seem to have effected all area's as hard as New England. We don't seem to hear much issues except the New England crowd. But even then its more area's like central CT being hit the hardest while over here in the NW corner there are still pallets of them to be had. Granted you can't get every brand you could like in April. But so far the only squealing I am hearing is price hikes. But then again, I'm not the one looking for them either!
No...I think the mills are going full out IF they are running...one had a fire, another closed for two months for a dryer replacement, others not being able to get enough raw fibre, or better pricing from overseas taking available product out of the market completly...etc etc etc. My volume has more than doubled since last year and it will double again this time next year. Some mills have made marketing changes on who or where they are selling their product...doesn't mean there is less overall product on the market, it just means there might be less in your area. Your favorite brand might not have to send their product that far anymore to be able to sell it, so if you can sell in your back yard, why ship it another 300 further...or your dealer might decide they only go out 20 miles and not 45 anymore...and instead of having 2 people on your street using pellets like 5 years ago, now there are 8, next year maybe 10...guess that depends on how long your street is...you get my point. I have worked in the commodity business for just about my whole adult life and this is not some flash in the pan and mills can't catch up by Dec...unless you have temps stay in the 60's or 70's till then....then all bets are off...but I doubt that is going to happen. You are certainly entitled to your opinion ...even if you are dead wrong on it.... but that is how bets are formed I guess...but if you are betting that there will be a glut or price drop in December this year on a general grand scale, in New England, then I would take that bet....but it wouldn't be fair....it would simply be wishful thinking on your part.....
I remember the spring of 09, April I believe. We couldn't find pellets in December, Yet here a pellet house had stacks and stacks of them. Seems he went nuts thinking the piles would move by the spring. Low in behold a pellet sale. $235/ton for Hamer hot ones and another had Cubex for $240. Woot woot for me, Cheapest I have seen them in a few seasons. They both were close to $300 in December IIRC. I got to go looking in some old threads! The scenario was much the same as this season. People that couldn't get pellet just didn't bother. Oil was cheap and many just filled up and and kept filling. Pellet piles started growing and growing. It may not happen again, But it could and I'll be ready to snag a deal if they come! Yep, Still sitting on those, Every time I burn a bag I just have to smile! Gonna burn up the cubies to make room JIC. I'll keep sitting on them Hamers.
Didn't say I was betting....said it was a feeling. Time will tell how this plays out. But I see many houses with 5+ Tons sitting outside that I have never seen before. Everyone I know has more in stock now than they burned all of last year.
I'm reading a lot of stories about how stores can't get pellets and are raising their prices, and the generic reason given is "trucking". Everything from the cost of trucking to there are less truck drivers. Can anyone "in the know" shed light on this? I just don't understand what's causing trucking to cost so much. Fuel prices in this region are lower than they've been in years, so where does all the extra cost come from suddenly? If it's true there are less truckers, where did they all go? Is this accurate info, or just a bunch of poppycock?
My trucking costs have been very steady for about 2 years now, but I did have a trucker impose a "fuel surcharge" on loads which is almost 1/2 of what it was when it went into effect several months ago...which it should be with dropping fuel costs. My railroads have been constant on raising their rate every year.. The cost of plastic for the bags has gone up and our fiber costs have risen....that said, we have tried our best to keep our prices to the retailers as level as possible ...but we do need to make a buck. The retail price is set by each retailer, which is why you will see different prices depending on where you are...and I will never comment on what one charges...He/she didn't get in business to have us tell them how to run it. But it is safe to say that some of the recent price increases have been done to take advantage of some shortages. That is what businesses do...not just pellet dealers and its called supply and demand. The trucking costs excuse is probably overused right now, but at the same time, I have had several dealers upgrade their trucks this year to the tune of several 10's of thousands and in the case of big trucks and forklift combinations, very close to $200k....so you need to sell some serious volume with a decent profit to justify that sort of expense....Some dealers are much more aware of their surrounding competition and monitor the market better than others...so your results may vary. Don't know if there are less truckers...but this is certainly more demand for those truckers, which means they can probably raise rates if you have more demand than supply...but you want to be careful not to raise too much and lose that business...can be a tough call sometimes. I will state one more time, that this winter will be a game changer for some dealers in the pellet business....some won't be with us this time next year and some will bump up to that next level to fill in any voids left by those that didn't cut it....again, that is how business works....just like life itself
This Is a Reply I posted July 8 of this year on another forum This is the way i look at It and It Is only my opinion. Lets just say there are 300 family's in my area that burn pellets and each bought 2 tons last year. Come April all were running short and went looking for more and were restricted to 10 bags IF they could find them.So now this year instead of getting 2 ton the 300 family's all decide to get 3 ton. Now pellet seller A,B and C have all got there winter supply 200 tons each for the winter. Come September when the 300 family s go to buy there winter supply Instant shortage that I don't want to be part of and that's why I got my stash early I ended up getting 2 tons if Okies delivered to my driveway and put in my cellar that day (It was 92 deg. that day).It has been said here you can Buy early and have a little piece of mind.Or wait and have to gipsy around all fall trying to find the best deal or in this year case Pellets that are avalable Jim
I dunno.....really depends on your perception, and correct or not, perception is reality to nearly everyone. Its pretty unlikely that all the retailers have banded together and are just sitting on their inventory in collusion, trying to raise prices and profitability. Occams Razor, anyone? The fact there aren't any pellets is real, and the most obvious reason is a shortage.
not sure what the issue is, plenty of pellets, Somersets around here for 194.50 a ton. Maybe I should buy them up and resell them in mid burn season. I would hoard them but this will be my last season burning as I am relocating to the USVI. My normal stash is 22 tons of Somersets.
