Acadia National Park, Maine. (image: Chao Cheong via flickr.com)
A troubling sign for propane prices has come from up North: The average price for a gallon of propane in Maine jumped a nickel last week, according to this afternoon’s report from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. That’s just shy of a 2-pecent increase over the week before. (The MPBN bases its numbers on a 925-gallon annual burn.)
It’s a bad omen for what retail propane prices are doing nationwide. The fuel continues to be buoyed by the high heating season demand, helped along by plenty of arctic weather this winter. Meanwhile, the shake-up in Cairo has continued to goose oil prices, a common propane bellwether.
We’ll wait till Wednesday to call it, when the Energy Information Administration puts out its national numbers. But if the country follows Maine, it seems the January propane plateau will be coming in February this year.