Posted by Jchu on January 1, 2012
Gas prices are expected to increase 15-20% this year. Honestly though, what prices are going down? With raw material, energy, electricity, labor, and benefit costs increaseing yearly, companies have no choice but to increase prices.
It has almost been a year since the catastrophic explosion of the Louisville, KY plant of Carbide Industries. The plant was the nation's primary supplier of calcium carbide and was forced to cease production. Since calcium carbide is used to make acetylene, people feared the disruption of production would cause the price of acetylene to increase dramatically. Luckily, the gas companies were able to purchase calcium carbide from abroad to meet the demand and the price of acetylene did not increase significantly.
Unluckily, our Acetyelne crises does not seem to be going away. This year, there will be shutdown of two Acetylene plants so the cost of Acetylene is expected to increase 20%, higher than most gas price increases. This will dramatically impact welders that need to cut and weld. Gentec has designed alternate fuel outfits that are suited for heating and cutting applications using propane/propylene gases. We also offer conversion kits to transform your exisiting Oxy-Acetylene outfits to be either Propane or Proplyene gas ready.