[TheForge] Acetylene shortage

[James Binnion]

Bellingham Wa, I thought maybe that this was confined to the East Coast so I called my supplier and was told that yes they are rationing and only filling their own bottles.


Jim


On Apr 1, 2011, at 3:42 PM, Craig Schaefer wrote:

> 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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> 
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James Binnion
jbin at well.com