Yates Gas buys Nantucket Propane
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Nearly three years ago Harbor Fuel Corporation purchased the Ramos Gas propane business and renamed it Nantucket Propane, while Liberty Propane of Overland Park, Kansas bought the Yates Gas Company. Last Thursday, Yates Gas absorbed the Nantucket Propane business, making it the island's sole supplier of propane fuel.

"It's not going to be a monopoly as the word is used," said Nat Lowell, who has worked for Yates Gas for more than 20 years. "It's going to be good. It's just like we absorbed their gallons. Our pricing is comparable to Martha's Vineyard and the Cape - prices won't go up because of this. Propane has become the fuel of choice, and we could not expand on our property, ever. This arrangement will allow us to expand over the next three or four years for propane storage.

"We have the trucks and trailers to bring propane to Nantucket, but there is much more work with the gas business," he added. "The logistics of Nantucket make it possible for something like this to happen, where one company owns the business but works side by side with other people involved in other parts of the propane business, like underground tank installations. We're supplying the gas, but there are other people involved."

Liberty Propane CEO Kent Misemer declined to divulge what his company paid for Nantucket Propane, owned by Fred Boling, but like Lowell, he stressed that the buy-out will benefit customers though there is no way to predict if future energy costs will rise or decline.

"What we were trying to do was to fill in some gaps we felt needed to be filled in," said Misemer. "The acquisition of this company nearly doubles the amount of storage on this island. We're trying to work within the constraints on the island to make sure everybody has gas. The customers can benefit from this for both supply and price.

"Both companies work very closely together," he continued. "Over the period of the last couple of years we have helped and supplied them and they have helped and supplied us, so when Mr. Boling got ready to do something different with the company it was a natural. He wanted to see a continuity of service."

Lowell explained that Harbor Fuel will retain a portion of its Bunker Road property for vehicle parking and share the rest of the land with Yates, which has its headquarters on Arrowhead Drive. Harbor Fuel representatives deferred all comments on

the sale to Yates. I