From the Director’s Desk: Sweater Weather, Your Average September, Off the Shelf (A New Pellet Wire Offering)
Sweater Weather
Tonight (Wednesday night), the sun will set at 7:46 p.m. in my backyard. At the end of the month, it will set at 6:55, and by Halloween the sun will set at 6:05 p.m. The State Fair saw the most comfortable weather it has had in years, and the 10-day outlook shows overnight lows in the 40s until at least Sunday. Upper Midwesterners are in their shorts-and-sweater phase — the uppers reflecting the weather to come and the lowers clinging to the last vestiges of summer.
Here at the Pellet Fuels Institute, we welcome plunging temperatures with open arms. Next week we’ll reboot our Heating Degree Day Index and follow along as winter weather comes back around. Last year, winter waited until the new year to show up. Heating Degree Days were lagging in all but one locale on the Index through December, and finally the cold came on in January and February.
An early start to winter this year would do wonders for producers and retailers, as nothing spurs heating fuel purchases like frost on the windshield. There’s reason for optimism, with outlets like the Farmer’s Almanac predicting a cold, wet winter across much of the country (see the last edition of the Pellet Wire). More recently, the Climate Prediction Center shows the cold air mass currently hanging over the Upper Midwest moving into the Northeast next week, acting as a bit of a preview of colder days to come.
Your Average September
Only October eclipses September in total wood pellet sales. Interestingly, September eclipsed October once — in 2021 — by a mere 221 tons. Consumers, feeling a nip in the wind and a chill in the air, begin to lay in their inventory for the coming heating season, and retailers begin to pull product into their locations to meet the demand created by the fall buy.
Average sales outstrip average production in every region, and September orders are filled, in part, by inventory laid down in the late spring and summer months. After watching storage sites fill since February, producers are happy to see more product going out on trucks than is coming off the end of their production lines.
September data in 5-year averages
East
Sales – 120,024
Production – 102,336
Inventory – 119,322
West
Sales – 45,380
Production – 36,876
Inventory – 67,148
South
Sales – 30,648
Production – 17,047
Inventory – 39,596
All U.S.
Sales – 197,342
Production – 156,219
Inventory – 226,067
Some September Records (year):
Highest U.S. Total Sales: 229,327 (2019)
Lowest U.S. Total Sales: 167,961 (2024)
Highest U.S. Production: 186, 559 (2019)
Off the Shelf (A New Pellet Wire Offering)
In the lead-up to the 2024 PFI Annual Conference, a member suggested I read Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest about Charleston (the conference venue), Fort Sumter, and the start of the Civil War. I spread the word, and a good handful of members and attendees picked up a copy and read it in advance of the conference. It was good fun.
In the spirit of that, I’m introducing a short note about a book that is being read by me or by a member. Have a book you’d like to see featured here? Reach out. I’ll start. In the spirit of colder temperatures, I’d heartily recommend Endurance by Alfred Lansing. This book details the Antarctic misadventures of Ernest Shackleton and the unbelievable feat of endurance he and his crew accomplished after their sailing vessel became trapped in an ice floe. Eventually, the crew had to abandon their main ship and make their way to land in three lifeboats. The book was written in the 1950s and is the result of direct interviews conducted by Lansing. The conditions Shackleton and his crew had to endure are hard to fathom. Seals and penguins were not only a food source, but the seal blubber was rendered to produce heating fuel. If unbelievable tales of exploration are your bag, you’ve probably already read this one. If not, get on it.
—Tim Portz
Executive Director
