What is Propane?
Propane is a versatile, multi-purpose fuel that is highly portable, clean burning and non-toxic. In Canada, supply is abundant and an expansive infrastructure exists to make it readily available and competitively priced. It is a by-product of natural gas processing and crude oil refining. It is extracted and used as a gas, but stored and transported as a liquid under pressure.
Propane is often called a liquefied petroleum gas (LP Gas or LPG). The term “liquefied gas” may be confusing but is this unique characteristic of LP Gas that makes it such a useful fuel. At normal temperature and pressure, propane is a gas. It changes to a liquid when cooled and moderately pressurized – about twice the pressure in a normal truck tire.
It is stored and transported in its compressed liquid form, but by opening a valve to release propane from a pressurized storage container, it is vaporized into a gas for use. Simply stated, propane is always a liquid until it is used. Even at -40C propane still vapourizes; that is why propane can even be used at extreme freezing temperatures.
LP Gas is liquefied to make storage and transportation easy and efficient. One unit of propane in a liquid form has the same energy content as 270 units of propane in a gaseous form. If left as a gas, the container to hold the fuel would be 270 times larger than what is required as a liquid.
