[TheForge] Acetylene shortage

[Craig Schaefer]

James, where are you located?
I haven't heard of a shortage yet here in the northwest, but I haven't 
filled lately either.

CraigS
Gresham, OR

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Binnion" <jbin at well.com>
To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 3:11 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Acetylene shortage


> Don't know if you all have heard about this yet but there was a massive 
> fire and explosion in a plant that produces calcium carbide a week or so 
> ago. Well it turns out that that plant produced about 30% of the acetylene 
> in the US (acetylene is produced by adding calcium carbide to water). So 
> welding supply companies are rationing acetylene. When this surfaced on 
> another list at first I thought no way that one company would have that 
> much of the market in acetylene as it is mostly used to make chemical 
> precursors to plastics not for welding. And further more the majority of 
> it is produced from cracking petroleum or processing from coal. But thanks 
> to the moving off shore of many major industries the capacity to produce 
> acetylene has suffered as it is much cheaper to make the plastics in China 
> they are now the major producer of acetylene in the world and our 
> production of acetylene has tapered off so that now one processing plant 
> makes a third of the acetylene used in the US. S
> o don't be surprised if you are limited to one tank and asked to prove 
> that empty tank comes from your supplier. As of right now my supplier will 
> not fill customer owned tanks stamped with other companies names and is 
> limiting larger accounts to only 50% of their normal purchases but one can 
> still get a single tank filled or exchanged. And OBTW the price has gone 
> up too.
>
>
> James Binnion
> jbin at well.com
>
>
>
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