Space heating, central heating, water heating, clothes drying, cooking, air conditioning, fueling gas grills. Brooder house heating, grain and crop drying, irrigation. The majority of propane produced today is recovered from natural gas through a separation process called fractionation. The balance comes from refining crude oil. Propane is shipped to retail storage sites on some 70,000 miles of pipeline across the United States as well as on railcars, transport trucks, and barges.
Propane is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and non-toxic.
As a safety measure, ethyl mercaptan, an odorant that smells like sulfur, is added to propane when it is loaded into transport trucks or onto railcars. The odorant helps ensure detection in case of leaks. In general, propane is a generic commodity, so retailers provide virtually the same product. Only service, safety, and dependability of supply differentiate suppliers.